Disrupting the Language of Power: Translanguaging, Whiteness, and Educational Futures

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Aligned with the theme of “Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures,” this panel explores how translanguaging enables transnational students to resist the internalization of whiteness and challenge the dominance of standardized academic English. We trace the colonial and raciolinguistic histories that have pathologized multilingualism and upheld white language supremacy in schools. Drawing from whiteness studies and raciolinguistics, we argue that translanguaging is not only a pedagogical strategy but a powerful act of resistance, healing, and identity reclamation. It disrupts the white listening subject and reimagines linguistic competence. This panel envisions a future where language education centers students’ full repertoires and commits to racial and linguistic justice, constructing a new vision for education that does not simply accommodate difference but affirms it.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 3: Languages, Literacies, and Representations

Chair

• Dolores Delgado Bernal, Loyola Marymount University

Papers

• Resisting Black Erasure: Raciolinguistic Perspectives and Critical Translanguaging in Bilingual Classrooms - María Cioe-Pena, University of Pennsylvania

• Unsettling the Roots of Colonial Education Policies: Unforgetting the Legacy of Indigenous Boarding Schools - Dee Sherwood, Western Michigan University; Julian Vasquez Heilig, Western Michigan University; Jamie Stuck, Michigan Tribal Legislative Liaison

• Emotional Repertoires: Translanguaging and the psychological costs of internalized whiteness - Nallely Gecik, University of San Diego; Jennifer A. Chabriel-Amara, University of San Diego; Cheryl E. Matias, University of San Diego

• Reclaiming Voice: Translanguaging as Resistance to the white Listening Subject - JPB Gerald, Hunter College

Session Organizer

• Nallely Gecik, University of San Diego

Discussant

• Cheryl E. Matias, University of San Diego