ABSTRACT
This paper ties the concept of translanguaging to that of Mignolo (2000) on bilanguaging love. It presents how one teacher of Lao descent works with recently arrived adolescent immigrants in New York City by leveraging their translanguaging and centering understandings of love and relationships. By focusing on two texts written by African American women, one a novel using what some call Black English, and the other a treatise of essays, the teacher engages the students in discussing/presenting/writing/drawing/acting language and gender. By focusing on love, the teacher’s leveraging of the students’ translanguaging starts to heal the violence that has taken place in preventing these students from using their unitary full repertoire of semiotic resources, as well as the violence experienced by abused women all over the world. This classroom shows how in the close joining of translanguaging to Mignolo’s concept of bilanguaging love, translanguaging becomes actionable as spiritual activism. It demonstrates how translanguaging cuts across named languages and named modalities, giving everyone access to their full repertoire and healing relationships among ourselves, others, and the world.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).