This project takes the surveillance of Muslim communities connected to the Raza v. New York case between 2013 and 2016 as its focus. The project uses maps and illustrations to retell the case and reveal the ways in which the plaintiffs began a practice of “code-switching,” and adjusting their language, in the context of this surveillance.

Using Food Trucks as sites of language performance, this project explores the everyday multilingualism of food truck operators. On the surface, it appears that vendors only translate food, but closer examination reveals the complex linguistic negotiations that not only bridge linguistic and cultural divides, but also determine which spaces are available to whom. Through interviews with food cart vendors, we come to see how central multilingualism is to the work of the vendor, and how linguistic knowledge grants access to opportunities and spaces.

The ways that languages are displayed in transit systems is a political act. This project uses New York City and Montreal’s subway systems to examine how these global cities respond to their linguistically diverse populations.

Language schools are everywhere, though their status in the city is not well defined: Some are businesses, others are public institutions, and still others are informal gatherings. This projects highlights the way that the city as an institution classifies language schools by layering the location of language schools on land use maps in a residential neighborhood and business district. By aligning these two datasets, we see that there is no uniform classification for language schools, and the type of building they inhabit is heavily influenced by the neighborhood they are in.

Navigating Illiteracy explores the particular challenges illiterate adults face when navigating public transportation in New York City, and questions what skills are implicit in reading and understanding maps, directions, and signage in a city. By exploring these themes, this project draws attention to the literacy crisis facing New York City and the United States, exposing the forces that conspire to lead to a situation of underservice for many illiterate adults.

This project goes on a search for the prototypical “New York City English accent”, first exploring the areas in which it was first documented by linguists (the Lower East Side and Lower Manhattan) and then taking a trip to Staten Island to find it alive and well on the busses, on the street, and in coffee shops. The author then analyzes the changing social and economic landscape of New York to help explain why the accent persists and why it may have migrated to the outer boroughs. Through this, the author connects an accent to a place, both in present and in memory, and illustrates the ways that accent helps us construct and maintain our identities.

The common idea of an ethnic enclave is a geographic area within a larger city in which a group of people live, work, shop, etc. This project turns our attention to one building, where neighbors live in separate apartments, but with a shared language and identity. Within a neighborhood, within a city, the building itself acts as an enclave, housing a community of Polish speakers, many of whom are interrelated through family and social networks. By peering into the microcosm of this building, we see how language is preserved and finds its purpose within the social networks that drew residents there.

This project goes on a search for the prototypical “New York City English” accent​​, first exploring the areas in which it was first documented by linguists (the Lower East Side and lower Manhattan) and then taking a trip to Staten Island to find it alive and well on the busses, on the street, and in coffee shops. The author then analyzes the changing social and economic landscape of New York to help explain why the accent persist and why it may have migrated to the outer boroughs. Through this, the author connects an accent to a place, both in present and in memory, and illustrates the ways that accent helps us construct and maintain our identities.

Written as a first person narrative, this project maps the presence and then disappearance of Spanish from Washington Heights as the author takes us on a walk along Broadway towards the Columbia University Medical Center. While at first the languages are in tension, and their spaces clearly defined, by the end of our walking tour, we come to understand that Bilingual is, itself, a natural language, and both Spanish and English can coexist in space, community, and individual.