This paper intends to show that language planning in Colombia has followed patterns of exclusion and marginalization towards minority groups. The language policies adopted during the Spanish colonization have been followed, enhanced, fostered and legitimized during the different history periods of our country and have successfully merged into internal colonialism (González Casanova, 2006; Rivera Cusicanque, 2010) which in turn serves the interests of a neoliberal take on education.
This paper intends to show that language planning in Colombia has followed patterns of exclusion and marginalization towards minority groups. The language policies adopted during the Spanish colonization have been followed, enhanced, fostered and legitimized during the different history periods of our country and have successfully merged into internal colonialism (González Casanova, 2006; Rivera Cusicanque, 2010) which in turn serves the interests of a neoliberal take on education. In 2004 the National Government launched the National Bilingualism Program, whose main goal was to promote the teaching and learning of English around the country in all levels of the school system from elementary school to terciary education. The program has been widely criticized by Colombian scholars for its discriminatory foundation (Cárdenas, 2006b; González, 2007; Guerrero, 2008; Usma, 2009). Taking the issue of this policy as a disruptive point, the presentation starts by doing a historic account of language policies adopted by the Spanish Crown in the Americas, followed by language policies after Colombia got its indepence from Spain until the present time. Along with this account, I will be showing how colonial practices (language policy wise) mutated into an internal colonialism that has prevailed from the early years of independence and which refuses to dissapear. I will also attempt to demonstrate that the adoption, since the early 90s, of a neoliberal econonomic model in Colombia has brought negative consequences to the country and has fostered internal colonialism as a social practice. In conclusion, I would like to hypothesize how this three elements: Colonialism, internal colonialism, and neoliberalism play into the sxytnax of marginalizing minorities in Colombia. I will call for the need to include more subjects in critical studies of language policies in the undergraduate teaching programs in the country as a way to raise awareness on the syntax of marginalization.
