From Compliance to Liberatory Cariño: Unforgetting and Reimagining SEI Through the Practices of Multilingual Teachers

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 7:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Policy, Equity, and Critical Perspectives in Bilingual Education

Abstract

This study explores how multilingual English teachers (MLETs) in a transitional SEI school enact transformative practices that resist monolingual mandates and reclaim students’ linguistic and cultural assets. Grounded in decolonial theory and critical pedagogy, the research highlights how teachers leverage translanguaging, culturally sustaining pedagogy, and what I term liberatory cariño—a radical form of care that challenges colonial ideologies embedded in language education. Through classroom examples and participatory methods, the paper shows how MLETs reframe linguistic “deficits” as strengths, modeling new ways to imagine language, power, and success. This work calls for a future of SEI grounded in relational trust, political consciousness, and multilingual belonging, aligning with AERA’s call to unforget histories and construct liberatory futures.

Author

• Vannessa Quintana Sarria, University of Massachusetts - Boston