Dr. Kyle Halle-Erby
School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA
Wednesday, April 15, 2026 | 12:30 – 2:00 p.m. (PST) | Hybrid | Scarfe, Room 1328
* Note: this seminar is Hybrid (attend via Zoom, or join us in Scarfe 1328). For zoom details, please email edcp.educ@ubc.ca
View the Seminar Poster
Host | Dr. Harper Keenan
Abstract:
This presentation uses the concepts of relationality and abolition to analyze the construction of newness among immigrant students and make recommendations for acting in solidarity with immigrant communities. Based on a multiyear ethnographic study of specialized high school programs for immigrant students in Los Angeles, I examine the construction of newness as a feature of language policy with historical roots and global implications. I argue that the construction of newness is a strategy for dominating, structuring, and wielding authority over Indigenous and Latinx children as part of the ongoing project of colonial state formation through conquest. The construction of newness conceals the history of insurgency/counterinsurgency on both sides of the border, to which students’ migration and U.S. school enrollment belong, and obfuscates students’ transnational political communities and kinship networks. This argument builds on and extends the existing conversations about coloniality in education and the role of language and language policy in understanding how state power attempts to impede immigrant communities’ aspirations.
Short Bio:
Kyle Halle-Erby is a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA in the School of Education & Information Studies. He works with immigrant students, teachers, and administrators to study language policy and planning using critical Black and Indigenous frameworks. Kyle is currently working on two projects: The first is a study of a transnational collective of teachers based in Guatemala and Los Angeles working together to support immigrant students across borders. The second is a partnership with a colleague at the University of Texas and immigrant families in a shelter at the U.S.- Mexico border. We are developing language and academic history assessments that immigrant young people and their families can self-administer and present to their future schools upon enrollment.