Inverting Spanglish as Resistance and Remedy to Native Speakerism and the Expropriation of Bilingual Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Language, Identity, and Resistance: English, Spanish, and Spanglish in Bi-/Multilingual Education (Table 1)

Abstract

This study explores how children and adolescents from diverse racial-ethnic and linguistic backgrounds perceive and challenge societal discourses about language. Using critical ethnographic methods, the research focuses on Desert Language Academy (DLA), a trilingual charter school in Arizona. The paper presents a counterstory of Gabriel and Isabela, two Latinx sixth-grade students, highlighting their use of Inverted Spanglish to resist tokenization and the assumption of their role as cultural-linguistic experts. The findings reveal how these students navigate and contest the school's language policies, which prioritize the needs of white and English-privileged students. This study underscores the importance of preparing bilingual educators to recognize and value the community cultural wealth of minoritized students.

Author

• Cory Alan Buckband, Arizona State University