FEATURE ARTICLES
Key Concepts in Bilingual Education:
Identity Texts, Cultural Citizenship,
and Humanizing Pedagogy
Maria E. Fninquiz
LuuiJe~:~~~7i_ert" rd /Duu:;t/ z;J(
n the second edition of the Encyclopedia qf
Language and .Education, Skutnabb-Kangas and
Me Carty (2008) argue that words and concepts
frame and construct any educational phenomena
thereby "making some persons and groups visible,
others invisible; some the unmarked norm, others
marked and negative. Choice oflanguage can minoritise
or distort some individuals, groups, phenomena, and
relations while majoritising and glorifying others"
(p. 3). In the examination of U.S. language policies
associated with biliteracy education, Skutnabb-Kangas
& McCarty provide an illustrative case of the historical,
ideological, and empirical underpinnings of the term
used to describe children becoming bilingual, Limited
English Proficient (LEP). Rather than emphasizing
language as a fundamental human right (Ruiz, 1984)
the term Limited English Proficient highlights what
individuals lack and not the pro:ficiencies they possess.
\Vhile the Limited English Proficient term used in
the U.S. was replaced by the term English Language
Learner (ELL), no value was added to the way second
language learners were viewed.
The two labels, LEP and ELL, that have been used
in bilingual education in the United States contributed
to a broader ideological discourse that persistently
promoted "one nation, one territory, one language
nationalism" (\Vright, 2004). Both LEP and ELL
also promoted the silencing of the descriptor bilingual,
"the B-word" (Crawford, 2004; Garcia, 2006). Many
researchers who have talked back to the privileging of
English over the home language began using the term
Emerging Bilingual students (EBs) (e.g., Tellez, 1998;
Garcia, Kleifgen, & Falchi, 2008; Garda & Kleifgen,
2010; and others). Garda et al., (2008) sum up the
stance for EBs: "[I]t has become obvious to us that a
meaningful and equitable education will not only turn
32 I Feature Articles
these English language learners into English proficient
students but, more significantly, into successful
bilingual students and adults" (p. 7, emphasis mine). I
agree with the term Emerging Bilingual and cultivate
this stance in my teaching and mentoring of bilingual
teachers and writing about exemplary ways to teach the
language arts. For me it is important that the hlll range
of capabilities and resources that Emergent Bilingual
students possess be available to them to meet academic
challenges in school as well as the challenges ofliving in
a technologically and transnationally advancing world.
Theorizing Language and Identity
In elementary school literacy settings the maintenance
of the Spanish language for the purposes of developing
an academic identity has typically been seen as a
problem (Escamilla, 2006) and programs that build
on the linguistic and cultural strengths students bring
from home are extremely rare (Garcia & Gonzalez,
2006). Unfortunately, Suarez (2007) similarly notes
that English-as-a-second language (ESL) high school
educators often claim heritage language development is
unrelated to their work. Thus, K-12 teachers do not seem
to value biliteracy as an important academic identity
and are more concerned with providing an English only
education to immigrant students. Some researchers have
provided explanations for the devaluing of bilingualism
and the promotion of monolingualism. For example,
Zentella (2003) posits that the importance of inviting
linguistic and cultural repertoires into English language
lessons makes common sense but may be daunting for
teachers because many students such as those from
Spanish speaking homes "enter school with more inter-
racial, cross-cultural, and multilingual experience than
their teachers" (p. 57).
Notwithstanding questions raised about unknown
funds of knowledge from inter-racial, cross-cultural,
and multilingual communities unfamiliar to teachers,
it is important for teachers to understand that without
opportunities to use family and community knowledge
students are presented barriers to English language
acquisition and academic achievement. The concept
of "funds of knowledge" is indispensible in bilingual
education (Mollet al., 1992) and refers to the ways of
knowing used in immigrant families for households
to function effectively. This conceptual view assumes
that everyday practices, including discourse practices,
are sites of primary socialization to language and
knowledge construction and that these home and
community resources can serve as important resources
in the classroom. In my view and those of my colleagues,
it is imperative for such student knowledge and
experience not to remain untapped, be discredited, or
remain a hidden fund of knowledge (Martinez-Roldan
& Frinquiz, 2008) in the acquisition of the English
language and academic literacies.
Many researchers have expressed concerns
about how Latina/o youth's local literacy practices
are overwhelmingly ignored in classroom instruction
precisely because they do not align with mainstream
middle-class literacy practices valued at school. Mercado
(2005) asserts, "Because of their lower social value, local
literacies (in contrast to official, institutional or colonial
literacies ... ) often go unrecognized" (p. 238). One
problem, then, is the inability of some policymakers
and educators to view students from working-class
immigrant families as evolving from households rich in
intellectual and social resources (Gonzalez et al., 2005).
Such a deficit view supports compensatory or remedial
education for students who are poor, immigrant, and/or
from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds.
It is also the view that informs labels such as Limited
English Proficient and English Language Learner.
Educators who do not advance this deficit
perspective promote a critical literacy approach - an
affirmative framework that took hold several decades
ago (Freire, 1970; Shor & Freire, 1987) because it
provides a way of probing into ways students' differing
linguistic and cultural resources can be made visible
and effectively included in literacy events both in
and outside of school. This notion of critical literacy
seeks to broaden narrow bridges of communication
and definitions of reading as the mere acquisition
of technical skills. Instead, critical literacy opens up
spaces where the contexts in which words are used
in the world (Freire & Macedo, 1987) are examined.
When access to home and community languages and
equity in relation to diverse ways of knowing are the
core principles for education therein bilingualism and
multiculturalism thrive. In my own research work
three interrelated concepts as~ist in constructing a
conceptual framework with strong implications on how
The NERAJournal (2012), Volume 48(1)
teachers can better assist Emergent Bilingual students
in developing criticalliteracies. These three interrelated
concepts are: Identity Texts, Cultural Citizenship, and
Humanizing Pedagogy. In the following sections I will
present research literature that informs each concept
and provide some illustrative examples.
Identity Texts
Cummins (2001, 2004, 2006) has suggested identity
investment as a core element vital for cognitive en-
gagement in subject areas learning. In his multilitera-
cies projects Cummins insists that immigrant students'
success as writers is highly dependent on the types of
opportunities they are provided tor identity investment
in texts they are asked to produce in their non-native
language. He describes identity texts as artifacts that
students produce whereby they take ownership of their
learning. Once produced, these identity texts serve as
mirrors in which a student's identity is reflected back
in a positive light. What immigrant students are asked
to do and whether they are positioned as learners and
knowers either expands or constrains their identity
investment and cognitive engagement. The idea is for
teachers to plan for providing opportunities for cogni-
tive engagement and identity investment in the teach-
ing of English through a concept in a content area.
In my own work with a colleague in a newcomer
center (Franquiz & Salinas, 2011; Franquiz & Salinas,
2012), we evaluated students' written responses related
to a unit on U.S. history. These lessons provided evidence
of students' grasp of English language development as
well as historical thinking, a central perspective in the
teaching and learning of the social studies.
Guiding principles for lessons included fostering
historical thinking via primary sources and document-
based questions, defi.ning important vocabulary for a
specific historical period, discussing understandings
of history given the evidentiary trail provided in the
primary sources, andindependentwriting about students'
own conclusions of historical events and actors. The
objective of historical thinking is for students to take
into consideration the context, purpose, and authors of
historical documents. This knowledge in turn is used to
develop empathy, agency, and judgment for positioning
themselves in their writing responses.
The use of historical thinking is a growing but not
necessarily prevalent pedagogical practice in U.S. public
schools (VanSledright, 2010). Inquiry and writing are
central to this approach and provides a way to examine
writing movement "toward critical social thought"
(Gutierrez, 2008, p. 149). As an example, a teacher of
newcomer students in Central Texas, IVls. Ayala, was
interested in expanding the U.S. History curriculum to
include critical social thought. She wanted to go beyond
the prevalent Black/White narrative of the Civil Rights
era and include the Mexican American/Chicano Civil
Feature Articles I 33
Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s also known as
El Movimiento. For weeks she exposed the newcomers to
digitized primary documents and photos of segregation
across historical eras that impacted the lives of brown
people as well as black people. Students also learned
about the protests, marches, and leaders that promoted
civil rights for racially marked groups including Latina/
os during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The newcomer students, many who had emigrated
from Mexico, Honduras, and Caribbean countries,
learned that one of the critical responses to injustices
that targeted Latina/os in the U.S. was their collective
effort to shape various political organizations. In order
for the newcomers to construct their position in relation
to the agency demonstrated by these organizations,
each student wrote a letter to the organization they
considered most influential in protecting the civil rights
of Mexican Americans and other Latino groups. One
newcomer student, Lolita, wrote a letter to the United
Farm Workers and another newcomer student, Laura,
wrote a letter to the League of United Latin American
Citizens (LULAC). Both students used their second
language, English, to position their identities in their
letters. Table 1 presents their positions in their own
words.
Lolita is from a rural area in Puerto Rico. From
her letter it can be inferred that she acknowledged a
sense of compassion with farm workers who labor in
the sun for very little money in order to assist farm-
ers with the planting, maintenance, and harvesting of
crops. She wrote in support of the United Farm Work-
ers organization because they strive to get farmers to
pay their farm workers a fair wage-a situation that
impacted her family for several generations as they
worked with coffee plants in Puerto Rico. Although
at the time the sample was produced, Lolita still did
Table 1
Newcomer Student Letters to Latina/o Civil Rights Organizations
Lolita
Dear:. United Farm Workers Union
. . .
1 support your organization because I think thatthey should
pay the farmers more moneyfor all the work that they do in
theforms. . . .
1 think that if they don't change l::mdpay them more that then
the farmers should not work for them.
I think thatforming is a really badjob for people to do and be
in the sun for so many hours.· ·
1 support your organization.
Sincerely, ·
34 I Feature Articles
not have ample English language vocabulary to elabo-
rate the points she made in her letter, her strong and
empathetic stance reflected her recent decision to join
the U.S. Army upon graduation from high school in
order to assist her family of agricultural workers on the
island. In this identity text she positioned herself as a
knower of labor disputes with a civic ethos to support
an organization that could address injustice toward ag-
ricultural workers. In this letter, Lolita uses the funds
of knowledge (Mollet al., 1992) from home and com-
munity to develop a position regarding the rights pro-
tected by the United Farm Worker Union. Her letter in
English is an identity text with a strong stated position
that reflected her heritage and grabbed the attention of
her teacher and peers.
Her classmate, Laura, was from Mexico. Her let-
ter expressed support for the League of United Latin
Americans Citizens. Laura was impressed that mem-
bers of LULAC were concerned about discriminatory
policies and the voting rights and responsibilities of
Latina/os. She wrote about her gratefulness for their
eftorts and hoped they would continue to benefit her
community when she is an adult ("for years to come").
Her use of the pronoun "our" indicates she sees herself
as part of a Latina/o world that must continue to fight
for their basic rights including the right to vote. She
also used one of the vocabulary words introduced in
the unit, discriminate. Laura used her newfound vo-
cabulary and her insight as a person learning English
and seeking citizenship to construct an identity text
that reflected her reality and other Latina/os beyond
herself. As newcomers1 both young women took a po-
sition that was deeply influenced by their own histori-
cal understanding of racial, class, and gender inclusion
or exclusion related to employment and discriminatory
policies toward immigrants who must earn the right to
vote. While their English form was far from perfect,
they were able to clearly state their position in identity
texts-a perfect avenue for revealing historical think-
ing in a writing assignment with conventions they
knew and understood (a letter). However, not all iden-
tity texts collected in Ms. Ayala's class were produced
in English.
Analyses of students' language choices in written
as well as oral responses showed a more comprehensive
picture of each newcomer's capacities that would not
be possible with a policy of assessing development in
English-only as is prescribed in many language support
programs, newcomer centers, and sheltered content area
classrooms. For example, students studied the two-
class segregated system set up in the South referred to
as Jim Crow laws. They also studied Juan Crow Laws 2
in the current era. To do this, Ms. Ayala presented
some document-based questions to her students based
on photos (Figure 1) that showed Blacks and Latinos
protesting SB 1070 in Arizona 3 •
To the document based questions that Ms. Ayala
presented, the students responded:
Figure 1
Arizona Blacks and Latinos Protest SB 1070
The NERAJournal (2012), Volume 48(1)
Ms. A: What do these signs mean? Why would
these men be carrying signs?
Laura: No quio·en que los hispanos olos ilegales tengan,
tengan derechos.
[They don't want Hispanics or the illegals
to have, to have rights]
M.s. A: Here they are pointing to certain people.
Areli, how would you respond?
Areli: It wouldn't be fair. They don't know what
M.exicans suffer. They never been in a mud
puddle working in construction. Like we
work for them. We make them the money.
So why are they protesting for only them.
They should get in our shoes too.
Ms. A: I'm going to write that down! Need to get
into other's shoes. [writing on chalkboard]
I think that's a good point.
In this segment of transcript Ms. Ayala modeled the
use of English and showed how classroom interactions
could be captured in a phrase, "need to get into other's
shoes." She also wanted students to understand that such
phrasing would be a reference for all and could be used
in a composition. Directly after these oral exchanges M.s.
Ayala provided opportunities for students to interact with
one another. She handed out newspaper clippings from
local Central Texas newspapers [Photo in Figure 1 came
from a newspaper clipping dated August 9, 2010 printed
in the San Francisco BayView National Black NewJpaper]
regarding proposed changes to immigration laws. Each
newspaper article was shared between two students. The
dyads read, discussed, and summarized the issues with
each other in the language of their choice. Afterwards,
the class shifted from sharing oral summaries/positions
with each other to working independently to compose a
letter to President Obama. In many ways this practice
exemplifies reciprocal teaching (a type of scatiolding to
teach comprehension strategies) because students worked
in small groups to question, clarifY, predict, and summa-
rize newspaper articles (after the teacher modeled how to
summarize talk on the chalkboard). The goal of recipro-
cal teaching is that by taking turns using this strategy
repeatedly with a variety of texts such as provided online
and in newspapers, students learn to use the strategies on
their own (Palincsar & Herrenkohl, 2002; Biancarosa
& Snow, 2004). This process of thoughtful and criti-
cal interactions is optimized with the invitation to create
individual identity texts.
The level of interactions in ]\1s. Ayala's class was
indicative of the way historical thinkir;g can be used
in more critical ways to discuss and write about the
oft avoided and silenced topic of race and American
history (Salinas & Sullivan, 2007). The content of the
lessons explicitly inserted Latina/os into the curriculum
for a critical examination of U.S. history. Though the
students had not previously been introduced to the
Feature Articles I 35
social, economic, and political history of racially/
ethnically marked people like them, by highlighting the
then current events in Arizona the newcomer students
learned about racial tension within and not just between
groups. In other words some Latina/os were in support
of SB 1070 and others were not. Learning about the
diversity of responses within their own community also
created a dialogic space to discuss these diHerences.
Once the students had helped each other make
sense of the implications of the bill introduced in the
Arizona legislature their interests as young citizens
peaked. Several asked if the controversy over the
national dialogue on the DREAM Act4 was related to
S.B. 1070 in Arizona. Needless to say the correlation
between the two bills provided a fertile landscape for
composing a letter to President Obama. Students crafted
their own stances and sought to support their position
with evidence from their own lives or from experiences
in their communities. Rodolfo expressed his position to
President Obama in two languages. The linguistically
hybrid letter is represented in Table 2.
By allowing students to express their feelings,
positions, and growing understandings of the immigrant
narrative, individuals such as Rodolfo developed a
stronger and more confident voice as a writer of his
own identity text. Unlike students in the class who
wrote their letters in Spanish or in English, Rodolfo
expressed his position to President Obama in his two
languages. The opening for the linguistically hybrid
letter to the President was written in Spanish. Then,
Rodolfo included one paragraph in Spanish and one in
English. His final closing was in English. He referenced
the injustice of deportation that attempts to silence
communication within families. Rodolfo also appealed
for empathy regarding the conditions under which
immigrants come as they encounter danger in desserts
and rivers, and endure deep losses such as leaving all
material resources behind. Remarkably, he suggested
that memories are the inspiration for immigrants to
seek the North American dream. He is perplexed,
however, with the fact that an immigrant who has been
in the U.S. for 13 years and remains undocumented
can be treated as a criminal. If he lived in Arizona, this
would impact family members who could be profiled in
this way. Noteworthy is that he spoke of himself, as "a
future voter," his family, "I have family members who
have lived here for 13 years and they are not criminals,"
and his community, "all of them risk their lives."
Another student Susana wrote a two-page letter
and took a position not just for herself but also for
all immigrant students that, like her, are part of an
undocumented community. In a segment of the letter
she wrote, "Nosotros estamos en este pais luchando por
nuestro sueiio Americana. Nosotrosya somas parte de Estados

Table 2
Rodolfo's Letter to President Obama

Para Presitlente Obama,

Soy un estudiante de secundaria enS__, Tx y estoy escribiendo sabre lasleyes migratorias. ¥opienso que no esjustodeportar
a los imigrantes porque dejan sufomiliapor meses sin saber de ellos. Lo drjan todo. Solo !levan con ell0s los recuerdos. Todos
van an·iesgaJzdo Ia vida im el desierto o en elrio grwnde. Yo tengo fomiliares que han e!;tado.aquipor 13 alios J!tO son
criminales; Solo vienen en busca del suefw norteamericano.

Thank youjar redtling my letter andfor )lout: time. As ajztture voterfor this tountr)i, l appreciate the efforts that you ta'ke to
ensure a dn:nocratic nation. · ' · · ·

Sincere]y,
Rodolf~

36 I Feature Articles
Unidos. Nos queremos quedar aqui. Yo estoy muy de acuerdo
con el Dream Act porque nos estan dan do Ia oportunidad de
sobresalir adelante y luchar por tener una buena educacion
y porque nosotros seremos el futuro de Estados Unidos."
(Translation: "We are in this country fighting for our
American dream. We are already part of the United
States. We want to stay here. I am very much in favor
of the Dream Act because it gives us the opportunity to
succeed and to continue fighting for a good education
and because we are the future of the United States.")
While Susana's writing in Spanish has the persistent
problem of lack of accents, the affirmation in her
identity text that all immigrants like her deserve not
to have their American Dream deferred is clear. At the
end of the letter she writes bilingually in bold capital
letters, "QUIERO QUEDARME AQUIII WANT
TO STAY HERE." This statement at the end of her
identity text appeared to reflect a sound bite similar
to the ones on the many photos and posters she had
seen in English and in Spanish carried by individuals
in newspapers, magazines, television, and the internet
during the course of Ms. Ayala's lessons regarding the
struggle for civil rights in the U.S.
Because Ms. Ayala planned lessons that would
provide newcomer students with opportunities to learn
new content area vocabulary such as discrimination,
racism, segregation, integration, civil rights, among
many others, these words could be integrated in
their identity texts as was evident in Laura's letter to
LULAC. Ms. Ayala's objective was to teach about and
have students connect with a sense of belonging to a
U.S. Latina/o identity. In this way students' designing
of identity texts was expected and facilitated and could
be authored in their native language (L1) the second
language (L2) or in both. By inviting all available
linguistic resources as well as personal and communal
funds of knowledge to the task of composing identity
texts, Ms. Ayala was able to cultivate confidence among
the newcomers to write longer pieces with the voice
that is required when an author takes a position. These
examples suggest that history is an excellent subject for
teaching English, subject area academic concepts and
vocabulary, and a sense ofbelongingness.
Cultural Citizenship
The centrality of linguistic and cultural resources
in a critical literacy approach shifts the meaning of
citizenship from strict rights to students' evolving sense
of belonging to differing social groups and to claiming
cultural space for personal and collective expression.
Because citizenship is not entirely about formal rights,
my research projects in Spanish/English bilingual
educational settings make visible the ways in which
Latina/o children participating in literacy activities
use their agency to author identity texts that reflect
their understandings of themselves and their social
The NERAJournal (2012), Volume 48(1)
worlds. Using personal agency to examine one's sense
of belonging to a specific collective is known as cultural
citizenship.
Much of the scholarship on cultural citizenship
focuses on the ways that :Mexican culture is excluded
from or assimilated inro enduring societal structures
(Flores & Benmayor, 1997; Rosaldo, 1994) such as
schools. Using cultural citizenship as a lens to understand
a sense of belonging (or not) entails learning about
the multiple ways "Latinas/os give culture a central
place in defining their identity, relationships with the
world, and sense of rights" (Silvestrini, 1997, p. 40).
In my own collaborative work (Fr:inquiz & Brochin,
2006a; 2006b) four premises were advanced for the
purpose of fostering cultural citizenship in language
arts classrooms. These premises were culled from the
available research literature (Flores &Benmayor, 1997;
Rosaldo, 1994; Ong, 1996; UNESCO, 1997) and are
dynamically interrelated.
The four premises for educators to consider in
fostering the development of cultural citizenship in
their classrooms are: 1) providing access to culturally
relevant oral, visual and written texts, 2) proposing
multiple opportunities for children to use their cultural
assets in producing identity texts, 3) fostering cu]tural
preservation, and 4) engaging students in activities with
transformative potential. I will explain these premises
and provide some brief examples from research
completed in Colorado and Texas.
1. Providing access to culturally relevant texts.
The principle of using culturally relevant texts is not
new. J\tlany scholars agree that literacy experiences
connected to the local context allow youth to gain
meaningful understanding of their multiple realities
(Harris, 1993;Jimenez&Gomez, 1996; Moll, Amanti,
Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992). Laliberty (2001) used this
premise in her classrooms and found that inviting
bilingual students to tap into lived experiences in the
official space of the classroom improved the quality
of their writing development. Nathenson-Mejia and
Escamilla (2003) applied this principle in their approach
to training pre-service teachers who in turn had
positive results in their student teaching assignments.
However, Barrera and <2.!:1iroa (2003) warn that some
texts considered as culturally relevant actually promote
cultural stereotypes. For example, all books on Latina/
os in a classroom may reference the migrant experience
only, which is not an accurate portrayal of the diversity
among this group. Thus, the principle of access to
culturally relevant material takes into account a critical
approach in selection of classroom literacy materials.
This includes making books available in the languages
students speak in a school community. Yet, one of
the most disturbing situations for teachers is the lack
of published children's books in languages other than
English. As noted by 1\llickenberg and Nel (2011),
Feature Articles I 3 7
"Patsy Aldana-the founder and president of Toronto's
Groundwood Books, which publishes some of the most
radical and acclaimed children's books today-has
found that demand in the United States for Spanish-
language children's books (as opposed to bilingual
texts) has diminished dramatically over the last ten
years as a result of anti-immigrant sentiment" (p. 446).
Consequently, materials in the heritage language are
often left out of budget decisions for culturally relevant
materials and can have dire consequences for immigrant
students unless they are lucky enough to have caring
and innovative teachers.
2. Proposing multiple opportunities for stu-
dents to use cultural assets in producing texts. An
assets orientation assumes that children from Latino
homes do not necessarily come from a "culture of pov-
erty" (Lewis, 1959). Rather, Latino children are invit-
ed to affirm and develop a "culture of empowerment"
(Benmayor, 2002). When teachers adopt an assets ori-
entation, students are provided multiple opportunities
to establish their cultural authority as authors of iden-
tity texts about their own lived experiences. Above all,
an assets orientation invites students to build on the
diverse "funds of knowledge" from their families, and
communities (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992).
For example, I worked with a teacher in rural Texas who
wanted to "create a sense ofbelonging" among her stu-
dents. To enact this principle, she provided at least :five
prompts as choices for initiating writing during journal
time in her language arts classroom. One or two of the
prompts encouraged students to make connections with
family or community (e.g., things I do with my family
or the wisdom of grandparents means ... ). By providing
multiple prompts and repeated opportunities to write
about one's home culture, students can explore their
rights and responsibilities as cultural citizens.
3. Fostering cultural preservation. Cultural citi-
zenship is a "set of social processes" (Rosaldo, 1997, p.
27) that fosters children's abilities to articulate their
values and beliefs regardless of race/ethnicity, class, or
documented/undocumented legal status. Ladson-Bill-
ings (2004) explains, "While some scholars might ar-
gue that cultural allegiance is provincial and dangerous
to a national civic allegiance, historically, ethnic groups
have viewed cultural citizenship as an important form
of self-determination and cultural preservation" (p.
114). Teachers that focus on cultural preservation in-
vite students to make a comprehensive identity invest-
ment in the texts they are asked to produce.
An example to illustrate the preservation of
community memories involves Rodrigo, a :Mexican-
American student I met several years ago. In an after-
school writer's workshop, he brought a newspaper article
about the demolition of a school in his local community.
Rather than writing about his point of view, he asked
his teacher and peers to visit the razed site where he
38 I Feature Articles
used a microphone to produce an oral commentary. In
a journalistic tone he said, "We're here in front of what
used to be the old high school... Before it was torn down
there was a whole bunch of people here ... trying to get
in. They were former students who came here ... they
just wanted to get in to see their high school one last
time ... They went to school here and what I think is that
they want[ ed] to have the memories of it... if they tore
it down, they might forget the memories." To support
his claim that residents feared losing their memories
Rodrigo decided to write interview questions to use
with his Tia Rosie who, in earlier decades, had taught
at the high school. This series of events re-engaged
Rodrigo who appeared very constrained in the typical
writing workshop format. His after-school teacher and
peers validated his writing process by accepting the oral
before the written text, the microphone before the pen.
An inverted writing process affirmed his commitment
to the cultural preservation of the historical memories
of the community to which he belongs.
4. Engaging students in activities with trans-
formative potential. Ong (1996) described cultural
citizenship as "a dual process of self-making and being-
made within webs of power. .." For her, "becoming a
citizen depends on how one is constituted as a subject
who exercises or submits to power relations" (p. 738).
This perspective mandates that educators not see their
students from subordinated communities as passive re-
ceivers of knowledge but as becoming agents of change.
Toward this goal a safe space is created for students
where they can link cultural practices from the home
and community to broader struggles for social change.
In these safe spaces opportunities with transformative
potential are nurtured so that students come to under-
stand citizenship as cultural responsibility (Rosaldo,
2003; Stevenson, 2003).
An example of this principle comes to mind from
my work in Colorado. One student summarized the
respect a teacher, Ms. \Vhite Chocolate (pseudonym
provided by students), had earned in his class: "She
understands the struggles of being brown in this
school and in this town. She is white on the outside
but brown on the inside." This teacher selected Bless
J11e Ultima to be read during English class. Arguments
ensued during the reading of the book chapters. The
:M.exican and Chicano students argued about who is
the real Mexican and if you have to speak Spanish to
be Mexican. Messages about "English Only" in the
media and local community made a strong impression
on some students and they did not like the fact that
the author, Rodolfo Anaya, used code switches between
Spanish and English in the book. Consequently, this
literary strategy caused some students in the class to feel
affirmed and connected, and others to feel estranged.
In many ways the story provided a rich resource for
examining group differences within the Mexican
community and challenged the idea that students with
common ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds share
common perceptions of the world. Because Ms. White
Chocolate had crated a safe space for literary discussion,
students could talk about the tensions accompanying
their personal and collective ethnic identity. Her stance
to use culturally relevant texts played an important
role in helping students acknowledge the possibility
of constructing more permeable boundaries between
languages that are in direct contact in school and in their
worlds beyond school. In this way she assisted students
in disrupting beliefs about language. Over time these
disruptions posed new possibilities and assisted students
to seriously consider new ways of thinking. These types
of engagements with contradictions, disruptions, and
tensions have transfor.mative potential and bear cultural
responsibility (Franquiz & Salazar, 2004).
Together the four principles of cultural citizenship
are meant to improve learning for Latino students in
general and English language learners in particular.
Educators interested in revising cultural relations with
their linguistically and culturally diverse students can
do a number of things: a) select culturally relevant
texts that assist students to respond with confidence
and cultural authority regarding experiences in their
homes and communities; b) plan for literacy activities
that support individual student's traditional as well as
unorthodox processes as writers; c) provide students
with .models and choices that explore their linguistic
and cultural heritage in literacy events; d) work
collaboratively with students, parents, other teachers,
and after-school programs to provide a broad range
of opportunities for the affirmation and development
of cultural citizenship. If teachers and researchers can
examine ways cultural citizenship is visible or invisible
in students' written products, then educators can make
more concerted eftorts to foster critical literacy for
children living within and among the many linguistic
and cultural borderlands of the twenty first century.
Humanizing Pedagogy
Paulo Freire (1970) describes humanizing pedagogy as
a method of instruction that "ceases to be an instrument
by which teachers can manipulate students, but rather
expresses the consciousness of the students themselves"
(p. 51). Freire adds that teachers who enact humanizing
pedagogy engage in a quest for mutual humanization
(p. 56) with their students, a process fostered through
problem-posing education where students are co-inves-
tigators in dialogue with teachers. Historical thinking
is a dialogic approach to the teaching of the social stud-
ies with the goal of constructing a critical consciousness
among students who will become full-fledged citizens.
The process of analyzing primary documents and prob-
lem-posing them with document-based questions fits
Freire's description for education as, "learning to per-
The NERAJournal (2012), Volume 48(1)
ceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and
to take action against the oppressive elements of real-
ity" (p. 17). Teachers who enact humanizing pedagogy
engage in praxis, reflection and action upon the world
in order to transform it (Freire, 1970, p. 36). They uti-
lize pedagogical practices whereby students can author
identity texts, affirm their cultural citizenship, and par-
ticipate in the humanization of the world.
A growing number of scholars have developed
practical applications of Freire's conceptualization of
humanizing pedagogy as it relates to the education
of culturally and linguistically diverse learners. For
example, Macedo and Bartolome (2000) suggest
that humanizing practices include valuing students'
background knowledge, culture, and life experiences.
They add that acknowledging and using students'
heritage languages, and accessing their background
knowledge makes good pedagogical sense and
constitutes humanizing practices for students. The
overall suggestion is that dehumanizing practices can
potentially stifle the academic and social possibilities
of learners. Such practices rob children of their full
humanity through a banking method of education that
encourages students to receive, .file, and store deposits of
knowledge provided to them by their teachers (Freire,
1970) in English only. This approach promotes passivity,
acceptance, submissiveness, and assimilation.
In the case of Emergent Bilinguals, the banking
method of education constitutes subtractive schooling
(Valenzuela, 1999), a process divesting Latina/o youth
of linguistic and cultural resources in literacy learning.
This process is particularly harmful because it discounts
students' home languages and cultural understand-
ings and assumes their educational needs are the same
as a monolingual child. In some schools such disregard
prompts Latino youth to use the strategy of «acting
white" (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986) or in the words of]uan,
a student in Ms. \IVhite Chocolate's classroom, "acting
gringo." Such strategies can be accompanied by the belief
that it is wrong to preserve linguistic and cultural identi-
ties (Benjamin, 1997) and they can also result in distrust
of classmates who display an assimilated ethnic identity.
The educational perspective of the Freirian critical lit-
eracy approach is the opposite-it is a pedagogy that in-
vests in creating a sense ofbelonging through a language
arts curriculum where identity investment and cultural
citizenship are at the core ofin.clusive classroom commu-
nity practices (Fninquiz & H.eyes, 1998). The examples
from my research that are included in this article are il-
lustrative cases of teachers who endorse a humanizing
pedagogy for teaching criticalliteracies in the language
arts classroom and other subject areas.
Conclusion
I began this article pointing out ways words and labels
can influence the identity of individuals who are not
Feature Articles I 39

yet literate in English. Although policies may insist on
using descriptors that invoke deficit ways of referring
to children from non-dominant ethnic groups or from
poor families, we as educators can invent new affirmative
words from an assets-oriented perspective. In the field
ofbilingual education the term Emergent Bilingual and
the term Biliteracy stresses the additive orientation of a
child's language and literacies acquisition. It also puts
the word bilingual at the core of growth rather than the
monolingual direction suggested by Limited English
Proficient or English Language Learner.
While I have tried to provide practical examples
from my research studies in Colorado and Texas, there
is no question in my mind that language instruction
across the nation needs continued reflection and reform.
Regrettably, there are many programs that myopically
pursue the goal of English acquisition as fast as possible
without considering the identity investment of students
and the affirmation of their cultural citizenship. Luckily,
I have been fortunate enough to work with teachers
entering or in the profession who desire to move from
a traditional mainstream pedagogy in which language
learners are passive individuals to a humanizing
pedagogy in which language learners are invited to
examine competing meanings and forms of knowledge.
These educators are fervently dedicated to advancing
educational equity and access for learners such as Lolita,
Laura, Rodolfo, Susana, and Rodrigo and cultivating
their own and their students' full potential. This is what
Ms. Ayala and Ms. White Chocolate accomplished
in their respective social studies and language arts
classroom.
From my experiences with remarkable colleagues,
teachers, and students I conclude with two reflective
comments. First, success on the journey toward a lm-
manizing pedagogy demands abandoning archaic no-
tions of second language instruction. Instead, we ought
to be advocates for a twenty-first century vision of teach-
ing the English language arts in ways that are inclusive
and build on the resources Emergent Bilinguals bring to
the classroom. In building this vision it is necessary to
unequivocally refuse to yield to dehumanizing language
policies and labels that attempt to strip our children of
their cultural and linguistic roots, traditions, literacies,
and connections to family. Second, an inclusive vision
of teaching the English language arts hinges on reject-
ing the hegemony of English, dismantling dehuman-
izing practices, and waging a countermovement to con-
struct an alternative discourse, a discourse of dignidad
(dignity) that respects the fimdamental human rights of
all learners to access their heritage language and affirm
their cultural citizenship as they transition to new ways
of being. Educators who co-construct with their stu-
dents an academic foundation that respects the dignity
of all resources brought to the classroom will undoubt-
edly help newcomers and more expert others to become
40 I Feature Articles
I
I
engaged in the subject areas with the types of critical
literacy skills that will advance the twenty-first century
to new and more just heights.
Footnotes
1
Puerto Ricans from the island are U.S. citizens
with exposure to English as a subject throughout all the
grades. However, upon arrival to the mainland their
English language proficiency is not at par with grade
level peers and their socialization to schools is different
than stateside. For these reasons they are considered
newcomers at the high school where the study took
place.
2
SB 1070 in Arizona has been called a Juan Crow
Law in the name of getting tough on immigration
reform that targets "i11egals." See Roberto Lovato's
postings on The Nation magazine and the Hujjington
Post for excellent examples. Juan Crow laws include
regulations restricting the use of Spanish and allowing
law enforcement officials to practice ethnic profiling.
3
Arizona Senate Bill 1070 is a legislative bill that
at the time of passage was the broadest and strictest
anti-illegal immigration measure in recent U.S. history.
The law requires all immigrants over the age of 14 who
remain in the U.S. longer than 30 days to have legal
alien registration papers in their possession at all times.
Provisions requiring immigration status checks during
law enforcement stops was upheld in the U.S. Supreme
Court in June 2012.
4
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien
Minors (DREAM act) is a bipartisan legislation that
would allow undocumented students who graduate from
U.S. high schools and have been in the country for at
least five years prior to the bill's enactment a temporary
resident status. Within a six-year period, a qualified
student must complete two years in the military or two
years at a four-year institution of higher learning.
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