Borderlands Biliteracies: A Framework for Recognizing the Critical Literacies of Bilinguals of Color

• In Event: Deconstructing the Power of Language: Translanguaging, Racial Literacy Practices, and Critical Racial Consciousness

Abstract

In this theoretical paper, we aim to (re)imagine and (re)conceptualize biliteracy outside of the white gaze (Morrison, 1994) and white-listening subject (Flores & Rosa, 2015). To do this, we build on previous scholarship in language and literacy which disrupts conceptualizations of language and literacy that sustain monolingual views and standards that emphasize decontextualized skills for reading and writing. To this end, we combine understandings from border studies, biliteracy, and critical literacies to illustrate the ways in which bilinguals of color enact and embody literacies for the purposes of reading and writing the word and world (Friere, 1970). We offer a borderlands biliteracy framework that brings together the concepts of nepantla, border thinking, transformation/productions, and bilanguaging love. This framework demonstrates how these concepts are interconnected and are the necessary foundation to sustain biliteracy as a person of color facing the physical and imaginary boundaries of coloniality.

Authors

• Idalia Nuñez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Enrique David Degollado, Iowa State

• Claudia Cervantes-Soon, Arizona State University