Healing the Bilingual Bodymindspirit: A Case for Theorizing Emotion in Critical Biliteracies

• In Event: On Healing Linguistic Wounds: Bilingual Latinx Maestres Expanding Biliteracies Through Critical Pedagogies and Humanizing Methodologies

Abstract

Objectives
As Latina bilingual teacher educators and researchers who seek to prepare critically conscious educators (Heiman et al., 2024), we came together to collaborate in a multi-site project to better understand bilingual teachers’ biliteracy trajectories. This required us to first engage in critical reflection of our own histories across the continua of biliteracy (Hornberger, 1989). We engaged in virtual pláticas to (re)construct our own journeys of becoming bilingual and biliterate individuals, teachers, and researchers. The following research questions guide our analysis: (1) How did virtual pláticas, centered on our own critical biliteracy trajectories, serve as a method of acompañamiento? (2) What role did emotions play in healing our bilingual bodymindspirits?

Theoretical Framework
Biliteracy scholars distinguish critical biliteracies from biliteracy to center the historical power dynamics involved in the development and use of literacies across two named languages (Author & Colleague, 2020; Degollado, et. al., 2021). Critical biliteracies, then, are rooted “in the very lives of the people whose bodies have been racialized through colonial and imperial constructions of race” (Degollado, 2023, p. 304). We draw on critical biliteracies to theorize how analyzing our biliteracy trajectories through virtual pláticas facilitated collective acompañamineto and ultimately healing and repair of our bilingual bodymindspirits (Facio & Lara, 2014).

Methodology
We engaged in virtual pláticas (Nuñez, 2023) to reflect on our own critical biliteracy trajectories. The main data source were the video-recorded virtual pláticas of each of our biliteracy trajectories, which were transcribed and collectively coded using a thematic approach with multiple cycles of coding (Miles et al., 2019). Our approach was both deductive and inductive; it was deductive in seeking the broader themes in our research inquiries of biliteracy trajectories, and it was inductive in recognizing patterns and themes that we observed in the data.

Findings
The interpersonal and multilayered connections we made across our experiences served as a generative method toward deeper reflections and realizations. The act of sharing our trajectories, observing similarities and differences with curiosity, and asking each other questions, led to a rooted feeling of collective sense-making and acompañamiento (Nuñez-Janes & Heiman, 2024). Moreover, we observed consistent evidence of intense emotions that surfaced during key inflection points (Author, 2023) in each researcher’s trajectory. Importantly, there were co-occurrences of at least two emotions in tension (e.g., shame/pride, belonging/not belonging, discomfort/empathy). We conceptualize our dialogue about experiences and emotions as a form of collective acompañmiento and sense-making that led to healing and repair of our bodymindspirits (Facio & Lara, 2014) as part of our critical biliteracies development.

Scholarly Significance
Analyzing biliteracy trajectories critically, en comunidad, can lead to critical consciousness and ideological clarity for bilingual educators, and be a healing methodology to repair the wounds of being socialized in a white supremacist English hegemonic society. These findings can inform processes that create spaces for collective sense-making and the healing of bilingual bodymindspirits, in addition to fostering positive and integrative bilingual identities, critically conscious pedagogies, and ideologically clear biliteracy practices in bilingual teacher preparation programs.

Authors

• Alexandra Babino, Texas Woman's University

• Soria E. Colomer, Oregon State University

• Adriana Alvarez, University of Colorado - Denver

• Sofia Chaparro, University of Colorado - Denver