Transborder DisCrit Approaches: How Families Now in Mexico Luchar for Their Bilingual Children With Dis/abilities

• In Event: Intersectionality and Equity: Lessons From Bi/multilingual Students and Families

Abstract

Drawing upon a yearlong ethnographic study with transborder families in Central Mexico, we propose a transborder DisCrit framing to trace the case of a bilingual family of Mexican origin parents with a US-born child with dis/abilities as they navigate his educational possibilities across US and Mexican institutions. We argue that a transborder DisCrit framing is necessary to understand the powerful ways that transborder caregivers advocate for their bilingual children with dis/abilities within and across the mononational systems on both sides of the border, systems that instead tend to pathologize their children and their parental care. Our findings highlight how im/migrant families diligently navigate and leverage transborder networks that will permit a humanizing education for their bilingual children.

Authors

• Sarah Gallo, Rutgers University

• Anel V. Suriel, Rutgers University - New Brunswick