Translanguaging Literacies: Children's Literature and Literacy Instruction

• In Event: Translanguaging and Transformative Teaching for Emergent Bilingual Students: Lessons From the City University of New York–New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals Project

Abstract

Purpose: This paper examines how translanguaging is used in Latinx children’s literature, focusing on both the content that develops Latinx bilingual identities and how translanguaging is used to create spaces to grow bilingual literacies. The literature on translanguaging has focused on translanguaging as a theoretical framework and pedagogy, and here, we seek to expand the ways translanguaging is both processed and practiced. Studying the use of translanguaging in children’s literature provides ample ground for understanding authentic language practices, curriculum, and pedagogy. The implications of such analysis extend beyond the singular reading of texts to the communal experiences with children, inventories of classroom libraries for culturally and linguistically sustaining texts, and teaching practices that center translanguaging literacies.

Perspectives: García (2009) has posited that translanguaging reflects the ways in which bilinguals engage their linguistic repertoires. Thus, translanguaging in children’s literature can affirm the fluid ways of being and the role that language plays in our identities. Pérez Rosario (2015) argues that translanguaging is often used in Latinx literature for literary effect in order to convey authenticity in the communication between characters in a book, emphasizing that translanguaging makes it possible for speakers to break free from conforming to monolingual norms. Alamillo et al. (2018) examine how language and culture are reflected in Chicanx children’s literature and argue that it can raise the consciousness of children because it often reflects their lived experiences. Chicanx literature, Alamillo et al. (2018) argue, affirms children’s cultural and linguistic identities since it often reflects the fluid language practices of Chicanx families. Alamillo (2018) similarly argues that Chicanx children’s literature has traditionally been a space for children to see the “various language practices they engage in with family and community” and shows how translanguaging is an important mode of intergenerational communication (p. 152). These perspectives help us understand the ways that translanguaging shows up in children’s literature and informs what it can mean for educators engaging with these texts.

Methods and Materials: We conducted a literary analysis of Latinx children’s literature. Specifically, we examined the ways Latinx authors translanguage in their writing and analyzed these writing moves while making meaning of their use of translanguaging.

Substantiated Conclusions and Significance: In this paper, we consider how Anzaldúa’s (1987) legacy has shaped the ways in which we think about our Latinx identities and the centrality of our language practices. We examine how scholars before us have studied translanguaging in Latinx children’s literature, and contribute to this collective understanding to encourage educators to use and examine children’s literature that reflects their experiences, pedagogy that supports this use, and the creation of critical multilingual/multicultural libraries. We show how authors enact translanguaging in their writing in powerful ways and the potential of children’s literature to affirm the humanity of language-minoritized children, including their culture, identities, and language practices. It is our responsibility as educators to create these learning spaces that welcome translanguaging literacies, study its use in texts, and support students’ creation of their own texts.

Authors

• Luz Yadira Herrera, California State University - Channel Islands

• Carla España, Brooklyn College - CUNY