Villanueva and Min-Zhan Lu: The Power of "Red"

In "From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle," Min-Zhan Lu talks about her inner conflict with the word "red." Lu grew up in Maoist China, the daughter of academics who chose English as their "family" language. Lu went to the socialist schools, however, to learn math and science and - inadvertantly learned a whole new language - and a whole new context for language, which, in her article, she embodies in the word "red."

Instead of seeing this as the color of a beautiful rose, at home it became the color of "the commies," at school the color of "revolution." She felt pushed and pulled between meanings, unable, until she was much older, to resolve the two contexts until she was able to accept all parts of her cultural heritage - all parts of herself.

Even in the most seeminly inane comments, teachers can convey to students a difference between the language they enter the classroom with and that which they are expected to use within the classroom - it's another one of those very fine lines we must learn to walk if we are to give every student room to resolve their own inner language struggle and become effective communicators.