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While the majority of West Africans in the United States are Anglophone with Christian leanings, today’s most recent African immigrants are Francophone or French-speaking and Muslim. Even if they did study English in their countries of origin, it was the British version, and most have great difficulty adjusting to an American accent, which also includes the Black vernacular. In the Harlem context, their Frenchness can be both a benefit and a hindrance. But while few have the money or time to take English as a second language (ESL) classes, they realize that if they are going to take advantage of the place many have viewed as heaven, they must learn the language. While most are polyglot, they are primarily conversant in local African languages such as Wolof or Djoula, and this chapter covers the linguistic challenges African Muslims face in a city like New York.

This chapter examines Hunt's description of the events of 1858 and the crisis that led to the transformation of the Ethnological Society. The ESL Minutes contain no information on the meeting beyond the postponement of the date; and the official news report of the meeting submitted by the society to the Athenaeum mentions only Sir James Clark's presiding and the election of officers, with no public hint of any crisis. Thus we have only Hunt's testimony suggesting the crisis produced by the disastrously small attendance at the 1858 meeting, and his hint of the crucial role it played in the transformation of the society. Hunt's chronology displays the usual inconsistencies with the contemporary record but is consistent with the political dynamics of the takeover of the society. By early 1860, the racist takeover of the society was awaiting only the elections of 1860 to receive official validation.

This chapter introduces a set of exercises, assignments, lecture topics, and syllabus adjustments that have helped me attune my HEL pedagogy to undergraduates’ increasingly diverse prior experiences of English. I focus on one diversity-oriented exercise in particular, a “fieldwork” assignment that has formed the keystone of all of my HEL and HEL-based courses, with a detailed description of various iterations of the exercise. Then I provide examples of curricular adjustments—examples drawn, for brevity’s sake, primarily from my units on PDE (rap and standard English) and ME (dialects)—that encourage ESL, EFL, and NSHV students to make use of the inherent advantages and perspectives that they can bring to HEL. Undergirding all these ideas is my conviction that HEL instructors can be most effective when they yield enough authority to allow the varied range of native expertise held by their students to continually augment their perspective on, and mastery of, our radically variegated subject.