“If I said something, they would make me say it again in English”: A raciolinguistic Critique of Monoglossic Language Education

In some US schooling contexts, Latine/Latinx Emergent Bilingual learners experience subtractive schooling, a process that can have lasting effects on these Latine/Latinx learners’ lives. This chapter shares analysis of one such student’s narratives as the student, Mariana, navigates educational institutions, limitations, and opportunities. Mariana, who as an elementary-age Spanish speaker was pushed to give up her L1 as she became acculturated into the world of English-dominated monoglossic schooling, experienced her formative years of schooling as a process that required separation from family and heritage/linguistic community. Through the Conexiónes program, a place-based “second-chance” secondary-level program, Mariana experienced a multiliteracies pedagogy that valued multiple linguistic and cultural resources, and situated knowledge in local communities and dialogical projects rather than the subtractive and hierarchical language ideologies of her elementary schooling. Through analysis of Mariana’s narratives about her schooling experiences at the elementary and secondary levels, this chapter reviews dominant frames surrounding bi/multilingualism in the US context. It concludes with a raciolinguistic critique of monoglossic L2 education that highlights possible pathways for translanguaging and a strength-based multiliteracies education grounded in learners’ identities and community cultural wealth.