Bilingual education for self-determination: Re-centering Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x student voices

ABSTRACT In recent decades, bilingual education policies, programs, pedagogies, and practices have been constrained by neoliberal agendas which have undermined the radical vision of bilingual education as a means toward self-determination that the Chicana/o Movement youth articulated more than 50 years ago. This narrowing of educational possibilities has perpetuated the marginalization of bi/multilingual students from Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x backgrounds who comprise the majority of “English-language Learners” in public schools. In this theoretical essay, we re-center the calls of 1960s Chicana/o Movement youth (and parents and educators) and argue that to realize their radical vision, bilingual education and educators must deliberately re-center and engage dialogically with contemporary Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x bi/multilingual students’ critical assessments about their lived intersectional experiences with language, power, identities, and schooling. To this end, we propose what we call Bilingual Education for Self-determination against Oppression (BESO). We see contemporary Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x bi/multilingual children and youth as uniquely positioned to advance radical forms of bilingual education, like the type envisioned by Chicana/o Movement youth activists. We conclude with implications for the realization of BESO in practice and policy.