Campus Currents

Dr. Eva Michelle Wheeler held a discussion on the intricate relationship between race and linguistics on Sept. 22.

The event was hosted as part of the Arts & Ideas “Dialogue Across Difference” Series, and was over Zoom, as well as in-person in the Faculty and Staff Dining Room.

Professor of Linguistics Ines Vano Garcia introduced Wheeler, a professor of Spanish and Black Studies at Providence College and published writer.

“One thing I really admire about her is her curiosity about the world, and her commitment to learning from the people and communities she encounters,” said Garcia.

Wheeler’s work brings together sociolinguistics, raciolinguistics, language, race, identity, and belonging, Garcia added.

Raciolinguistics is “The idea that language itself could take on a racial identity,” according to Wheeler.

Wheeler said she was a lawyer, but became interested in raciolinguistics after two years and went back to graduate school. “These questions that I’ve been thinking through, they emerged while I was living my life.”

She said her goal was to travel as much as possible, which gave her many different perspectives on race and language. “Language and race change as you change spaces, physically and figuratively,” she added.

Race and language travel across borders, and racialization is a constant process, Wheeler said. They are created over specific histories, and “written onto bodies.”

To understand an individual’s relationship with race and linguistics, Wheeler said it is important to understand the specific history of where they are from.

She discussed her experience in her own racial identity, and how it changed depending on what country she was in. Her race was viewed differently in America than in Portugal, or the Dominican Republic.

Wheeler said, “it helps us understand race as a social construct. Our relationships with language are influenced by the societies that we’re in, and those identities are not static if society is changing racial categories.”

Raciolinguistics is not only a byproduct of social constructs, Wheeler said. It is a “vehicle” for racial ideas. The words used to describe race create a relationship between race and language.

“Our ability to describe other people and invoke discourses, generalizations, or stereotypes is a racial question,” she added. This use of language creates and recreates racial identity.

Wheeler also hosted a conversation about her memoir, “Alfacinha,” on Sept. 23 in the Alumni Room.