Lives On The Boundary

In Lives on the Boundary, language symbolizes access; those who possess the right language have access to opportunities that others do not. On a practical level, being unable to read or write in English limits people’s ability to succeed and often relegates them to poverty. Take, for example, the adult learners Rose tutors while in the Teacher Corps. Most of the class’s attendees are immigrants (both legal and illegal) who are “migrant workers and ditch diggers and other day laborers trying to keep a Mexican family in shoes and clothes with American wages” (129). By learning just a little English, Rose’s students gain the ability to navigate American society that much better. He tells readers that “the classes were bringing them comfortably into the schools, breaking down some of the intimidating barriers that traditionally keep them far away, distant from the places where their kids were learning how to read and write” (131). Language creates access for Rose’s students—not just in their communities, but even within their families. They can now become active participants in their children’s education, just by gaining basic English-language-comprehension skills.

But basic language ability is often not enough; a person can be literate and still be excluded from areas based on how one uses language. For instance, Rose nearly fails his first year at Loyola Marymount because he cannot use academic language effectively. For Rose, this is like learning a second language—that of the “academy”—and trying to “find [his] way around in it” with no help (54). His high school education does not prepare him for entering the university discourse. Once Rose takes over the Tutorial Center at UCLA, he understands that most remedial students are not prepared to read or write like an academic. Unfortunately, professors assume students will know how to engage with the language of the academy, and they “penalize [students] when they cannot” enter the discourse correctly (191). Thus, language becomes a boundary that separates those who belong in college from those who do not; to put it simply, the university uses language to demarcate intellectual “class divisions” (198).

All of this is to say that language becomes the boundary that stands between opportunity and marginalized students whether that be in elementary school, college, or within society at-large. The ability to use language is a key barometer for success. Problematically, people do not consider why some cannot use language; often, the answer comes from an individual’s socioeconomic and/or political reality. People lack access to language due to a combination of economic barriers, cultural barriers, or systemic barriers. But because America uses language as a symbol of personal ability, those who cannot use it are written off as the intellectual underclass. Instead, Rose believes even the most flawed language reveals an authentic and valuable truth, even if society refuses to hear it. The “weird commas and missing letters, the fragments and irregular punctuation” capture the stories of “field labor and children lost […] about parents you long for, jobs you can’t pin down” (214). By looking past preconceptions, language gains another symbolic value: that of authenticity. Rose argues that watching and listening to marginal students regardless of their literacy skill—without rubrics or judgment—exposes “an intellectual acuity or literate capacity that just wasn’t thought to be there” (222). Language, then, allows for the recognition of a person’s intrinsic value, regardless of their education level.