Chapter 1: Introduction

In 1998, when the Non-native English Speakers in TESOL (NNEST) caucus was born in TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages—now known as the TESOL International Association), perhaps very few people could imagine the remarkable achievements made by non-native English-speaking (NNES) professionals as well as professionals of color, who have since taken various leadership positions in less than ten years. The 2006 inauguration of Jun Liu as the president of TESOL—the first nonnative English speaker and person of color elected to that position—epitomized this attainment. As in many other academic organizations, TESOL’s leadership had been dominated by Caucasian native speakers of English, even though the field serves entirely non-native speakers of English, many of whom are people of color. This long-standing tradition was finally broken. In 2008, another landmark was made by the inauguration of Shelley Wong as the president of TESOL—this time, the first Asian woman in the position. This was followed by the 2008 election of Suresh Canagarajah as the second vice president of the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL), a position that leads to the conference chair and then to the president. He is also the first NNES professional of color in this position.