DOI: 10.1002/tesj.

502

SPECIAL ISSUE

Shared identities through translanguaging practices

in the multilingual mariachi classroom

Hayriye Kayi-Aydar1  | Curtis Green-Eneix2

1
University of Arizona
2
Literature regarding translanguaging pedagogy has grown
Michigan State University
in recent years, with several studies examining its use within
the classroom as well as potential ways it can shape learner
Funding information identity constructions (e.g., Sayer, 2013). Drawing on trans-
Spencer Foundation languaging and translanguaging pedagogy (e.g.,
Canagarajah, 2011; Creese & Blackledge, 2010) and the lit-
erature on teacher identities, this study uses qualitative data
collected through in-depth interviews with a music teacher
who self-identifies as Hispanic1 and bilingual, observations
of his classroom teaching, and descriptive field notes in
order to elucidate the links between translanguaging and
identity constructions in a U.S. high school classroom.
Analyzing how the music instructor used translingual prac-
tices to teach Mariachi, we found he constructed shared so-
ciocultural identities for himself and his students in a fluid
languaged space. We conclude with implications for class-
room practice as well as suggestions for research that may
more fully capture the complex experience and identity
work of linguistically, ethnically, and racially diverse teach-
ers in multilingual K-12 classrooms.

1  |   IN TRO D U C T ION
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2016), the number of Hispanic
students enrolled in U.S. public schools increased from 9.0 million to 12.5 million from 2003 to 2013
with this student population projected to increase in the future. On the other hand, 81.9% of the teacher

1
 We recognize the connotations of the term Hispanic. Given that our teacher-participant self-identified as Hispanic, we
recognize and accept his self-identification and use the word Hispanic to refer to him throughout the article. We also use
Hispanic when citing National Center for Education (NCES) statistics because it is the term used within the cited report. For
a critical overview of pan-ethnic labels used for people of Latin American descent, please see Salinas and Lozano (2017).

TESOL Journal. 2019;10:e502. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tesj |

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https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.502 Association
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population remains predominantly White, non-Hispanic compared to Hispanic teachers, who make up
only 7.8% across the United States’ public schools (NCES, 2016). This same teaching force is also
known to be predominantly monolingual (Bacon, 2018).
Although the scholarly literature has mainly focused on the White, monolingual teacher majority
within culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) classrooms, this has begun to shift to consider
in-service and preservice teachers of color. In particular, attention has been centered around Mexican-
American and Latinx in-service teachers in bilingual classrooms (e.g., Ek & Domínguez Chávez,
2015; Fee, 2011; Fránquiz, Salazar, & DeNicolo, 2011; Varghese & Snyder, 2018; Zuniga, Henderson,
& Palmer, 2018) and preservice teachers in teacher education programs (e.g., Clark & Flores, 2001;
Gautreau, Brye, & Lunceford, 2016; Sánchez & Ek, 2009), with a wide variety of foci including but
not limited to bilingual classroom practices (e.g., Arce, 2004), experiences of marginalization and
isolation (e.g., Amos, 2016), and teacher preparation (e.g., B. B. Flores, Clark, Guerra, & Sánchez,
2008). Much of this work has capitalized and elucidated on the complexities associated with Latinx
teachers’ cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds; however, the research also highlights the need for
further research in TESOL to examine the personal and professional lives of those teachers entering
a predominantly White field.
As the efforts to increase diversity in teacher population continue in the United States, it is im-
portant to fully understand Latinx teachers in CLD content classrooms and how meaningful engage-
ment with their full linguistic repertoires can foster and support equitable comprehension of content
being taught for students with diverse language backgrounds (Probyn, 2015; Zapata & Laman,
2016). To this end, our study aims to investigate the classroom practices and identities of one
self-identified Hispanic secondary school teacher with expertise in TESOL within a Mariachi2
classroom. Our study moves away from the traditionally focused contexts found in K-12 TESOL
literature examining English language teaching practices to understand the identity work a Mariachi
secondary school teacher engages in through meaningful translanguaging practices. By examining
how the teacher engages in diverse linguistic and cultural practices within this particular context, we
hope that we will help TESOL educators recognize the power of ethnic music as a tool for identity
development, the ways to develop a TESOL educator identity through translanguaging in a content
classroom, and the need to mindfully integrate students’ home cultures and languages into the class-
room to provide an equitable learning environment that values intersectional identities. Since our
study builds on the notions of translanguaging and identity, in the following sections we first define
translanguaging and review the related literature and then introduce poststructural identity as our
conceptual framework.

1.1  | Translanguaging

Translanguaging, an evolving concept, has gained momentum recently resulting in an increase in

research studies (e.g., Nikula & Moore, 2019), praxis-oriented publications (e.g., Cole, 2019), con-
ceptual papers (e.g., Jaspers, 2018), books (e.g., Fu, Hadjioannou, & Zhou 2019), and journal special
issues (e.g., Vallejo & Dooly, 2019). García (2009) originally situated translanguaging within bilin-
gual contexts and perceived it as “an act of bilingual performance, as well as a bilingual pedagogy for
teaching and learning” (García & Leiva, 2014, p. 199). Wei (2018) has contributed to the develop-
ment of translanguaging as a theory of language and argued that “translanguaging is not simply going

2
 Mariachi is a musical genre that conveys varying tales originating from Mexico and containing strong cultural significance
and expression.
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between different linguistic structures, cognitive and semiotic systems and modalities, but going be-
yond them” (p. 23). Canagarajah (2011) has further highlighted the performative nature of translan-
guaging conceptualizing it as a creative improvisation and a form of social practice that is shaped by
the needs of the context and local situation.
Drawing on their work (e.g., Canagarajah, 2011; García & Leiva, 2014), we understand translan-
guaging to entail the full use of bilingual or multilingual individuals’ linguistic repertoires and semi-
otic resources to make meaning in their social contexts. We conceptualize translanguaging, within a
social justice context, as a multilingual performance and pedagogy that offers a linguistic third space
(N. Flores & García, 2013; Wei, 2018) to enact, claim, and negotiate identities and contest hegemonic
language ideologies “rooted in racist, classist, and imperialist histories of language standardization”
(Poza, 2017, p. 103) within educational contexts (Canagarajah, 2011; García & Wei, 2014; Sayer,
2013; Wei, 2018). We recognize the linguistic third space, or the translanguaging space (Wei, 2018),
as a hybrid languaged context or state that allows teachers to use the intermixing of language as a
“legitimate pedagogical practice in educating those who are linguistically different” (N. Flores &
García, 2013, p. 246). Moreover, this space also enables language learners to bring together, as Wei
(2018) argues,

different dimensions of their personal history, experience, and environment; their atti-
tude, belief, and ideology; their cognitive and physical capacity, into one coordinated
and meaningful performance.
(p. 23)

There are several studies that have recently considered how these third spaces transform the class-
room ecology influencing how teachers and students interact, co-construct meaning, and understand
one another (e.g., Creese & Blackledge, 2010; N. Flores & García, 2013; García & Leiva, 2014).
The multilingual repertoire development and use, as multiple studies show, positively influences not
only learners’ literacy skills (Martin-Beltrán, 2014; Palmer, Martínez, Mateus, & Henderson, 2014;
Stewart & Hansen-Thomas, 2016; Zapata & Laman, 2016) but also content knowledge acquisition
in the classroom (e.g., Langman, 2014; Probyn, 2015). Translanguaging pedagogy is therefore not
tied to the language classroom but can be implemented in other classroom contexts and content; this
is only dependent, according to García and Kleyn (2016), on teacher’s ideological stance toward the
use of multiple linguistic repertoires within the classroom and how they intentionally structure their
classroom in terms of interaction, implementation and use of multilingual and multimodal resources,
and the pedagogical practices used within the class (García, Johnson, & Seltzer, 2016; García & Kleyn,
2016, pp. 20–23).

1.2  | Identities

In poststructuralism, identities are multiple and co-constructed in day-to-day interactions with others
across multiple social contexts (Gray & Morton, 2018; Morgan, 2007). The poststructural self is “an
agentive act of investment in, or identification with, already available subject positions” (Gray &
Morton, 2018, p. 10). Given poststructuralism’s strong emphasis on power, agency, and ideologies
in understanding social structures, interactions, and selves, the poststructural understandings of iden-
tity are appropriate for the study of professional identities of language teachers. This is because how
teachers make sense of themselves is not limited to their interactions and experiences in the classroom
but also includes numerous sociocultural, historical, political, religious, and institutional discourses
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in relation to their personal lives and histories outside of the classroom (De Costa & Norton, 2017;
Yazan & Rudolph, 2018). Therefore, the professional identity of a teacher refers to “the understanding
teachers hold of themselves as professionals” and is an “integration of both personal and professional
sides of being a teacher” (Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013, p. 121). Construction of a professional identity then
is a social process through which teachers build and negotiate “their own ideas of their beings, actions
and understandings of their teaching practice and their place in society and a basis for their decisions
and meaning making” (Yazan, 2019, p. 25).
The multiplicity of teacher identities has been extensively investigated in the teacher education
literature (for a review, see Jupp, Berry, & Lensmire, 2016; Ping, Schellings, & Beijaard, 2018; Van
Lankveld, Schoonenboom, Volman, Croiset, & Beishuizen, 2017). In the applied linguistics literature,
however, attention has been limited mostly to teachers’ linguistic identities with a particular focus
on the nonnative vs. native speaker dichotomy (Varghese, Motha, Park, Reeves, & Trent, 2016; for
a research timeline on language teacher identity, see Kayi-Aydar, 2019). It is only recently that a few
studies have examined the composite nature of language teacher identities or the intersection of multi-
ple identity aspects. For example, Kayi-Aydar (2018) examined narratives of Latina teachers and found
that ethnic, racial, and linguistic identities simultaneously shaped the teachers’ professional identities
and agency. In a similar study, Huang and Varghese (2015) showed the categorization of nonnative-En-
glish-speaking teachers is insufficient in describing teachers’ roles and practices. The teachers in their
study projected identities crossing social boundaries and creating diverse personal and professional
trajectories.
Translanguaging, with its prominence in multiple repertoires, is a tool that can be used to ana-
lyze the composite nature of teacher identities. In particular, translanguaging plays a crucial role
in identity development for CLD individuals in educational contexts heavily influenced by White-
centric and hegemonic language policies that emphasize a standardized variety of English. A
majority of the research using translanguaging as a theoretical lens or an analytical method has pri-
marily focused on learner identities (e.g., Kim, 2018; Sayer, 2013). Yet, translanguaging is an in-
sightful resource for teachers that enables them to navigate the hegemonic limitations placed upon
them. Especially in multilingual and multicultural educational contexts where certain teachers
are minoritized and positioned as “lesser,” translanguaging can empower them to challenge such
imposed identities. A few studies have examined how translanguaging taps into teachers’ identity
development. For example, Makalela’s (2015) mixed-method study showed that the purposeful
alternation of languages in teaching indigenous African languages was effective in developing lan-
guage and literacy skills and multilingual identities for preservice teachers. Besides showing how
translanguaging can be a resource for introducing new material, Creese and Blackledge’s (2010)
study illustrated how translanguaging enabled both the teacher and students to recreate and nego-
tiate their identities. Similarly, in a study by N. Flores and García (2013), two teachers that had
varying degrees of Spanish proficiency were able to use translanguaging as a vehicle to assist with
the (re)creation or the (re)negotiation of their professional identity within the classroom. Lastly,
Palmer et al. (2014) further examined the instructional practices of two bilingual teachers in a
two-way dual language public school and concluded that those instructional practices suggested
powerful strategies to promote bilingual identities.
Building on these studies and others on translanguaging, our study aims to understand how
our teacher-participant, whom we will call Mr. Armendarez (all names in this article are pseud-
onyms), constructed identities for himself and his students through translanguaging. In order to
understand the identity work Mr. Armendarez engaged in, it was important and necessary to first
understand what translanguaging meant or looked like in his classroom. To this end, our research
questions are:
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1. What translanguaging practices are embedded in Mr. Armendarez’s classroom instruction and
what purposes do they serve?
2. What kinds of identities does Mr. Armendarez construct for himself and his students through trans-
lingual pedagogy?

2  |   M ET H OD S
2.1  |  Setting and participants

This study took place in a high school Mariachi music classroom in a southwestern U.S. state. At the
time of the data collection, the school had the highest percentage of ethnically and racially diverse stu-
dent population (87%) in the district and was one of the high schools with the largest student population
in the state. The Mariachi classroom that we observed included 16 students. The Mariachi teacher, Mr.
Armendarez, informed us that he distributed a survey to elicit certain demographic information from the
students during the first week of classes. Based on the survey information, Mr. Armendarez identified 14
students as linguistically, ethnically, and racially diverse, all of whom came from lower socioeconomic
backgrounds. Mr. Armendarez also informed us that, based on the survey information that included
students’ self-reported perceptions of their English and Spanish proficiencies along with his own as-
sessment through his instruction and interactions with the students, he identified 60% of the students in
his Mariachi class as proficient in Spanish in terms of language abilities. The remaining 40% had either
been minimally exposed or not exposed at all to Spanish. While a number of students had been formally
identified as “ESL learners” (learners of English as a second language) in earlier grades by the school
and/or school district, none of them were officially so categorized at the time of this study.
Mr. Armendarez was in his early 30s, had been teaching Mariachi for over 10 years, and held a
structured sheltered immersion endorsement—one of the three language-focused endorsements re-
quired of all K-12 teachers in the state. In the interviews, he acknowledged that he perceived himself
as a TESOL professional and it was important for him to design his instruction to contribute to the
students’ academic language development both in Spanish and English. He had volunteered to partic-
ipate in another study conducted by the first author of this article. Because he indicated a willingness
to participate in future research activities and was known to be an exemplary teacher in his school,
we invited him to participate in this current study. Mr. Armendarez self-identified as Hispanic and a
heritage speaker of Spanish who was born and raised in the United States by immigrant parents.

2.2  |  Data collection and analysis

The qualitative data included three in-depth, face-to-face, and semi-structured interviews with Mr.
Armendarez, observations of his classroom teaching, and our descriptive field notes. The first interview
focused on Mr. Armendarez’s linguistic, educational, ethnic, and racial background. In the second and third
interviews, we elicited further information in areas that were essential to our research questions, focused
more on his teaching practices, and asked further questions about his students as well as diversity in his
classroom and professional life. The average length of the interviews was 85 minutes and all three interviews
were audiorecorded and later transcribed verbatim for analysis. After receiving the signed parental consent
forms, we visited the Mariachi classroom six times over the semester, audiorecorded each class session, sat
at different spots, and took notes. After each observation, we briefly reflected on our observation and field
notes, highlighting areas that we would want to revisit later or focus on more in future observations.
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We utilized a complex coding system developed by Saldaña and Omasta (2018) in analyzing our
interview and observational data. Our iterative and ongoing analysis enabled us to not only gain dif-
ferent insights into our participants’ experiences but also address our research questions as thoroughly
as possible. In the initial readings of our data, we paid attention to our participants’ language both in
the interviews and classroom talk and identified words and phrases that stood out, which we utilized
without changing, as codes. These codes were not always directly relevant to our research questions,
but they captured our attention and we marked each to revisit later. Because we were interested in
translanguaging practices and identity work, we identified “forms of participant action, reaction, and
interaction as suggested by the data” (Saldaña & Omasta, 2018, p. 126). This “process coding” helped
us focus on “what participants are doing or what is happening, either within the stories they tell or
within the experiences they relate” (Saldaña & Omasta, 2018, p. 126). As suggested by Saldaña and
Omasta, we used -ing words as codes in marking those segments of our data. We also identified and
coded for attitudes, values, and beliefs that our participants explicitly stated or we inferred from the
data. Finally, because the recent research on identity overwhelmingly points out the tight connection
between identities and emotions (De Costa & Norton, 2017; Zembylas, 2003), we looked for emo-
tion discourses and coded each, which helped us better understand the identities of our participants.
Eventually, we developed hundreds of codes. We completed our coding processes by looking for code
frequency and grouping codes that went together, which led us to major categories first and then
themes that thoroughly addressed our research questions. We now turn our attention to these themes.

3  |   F IN D INGS
Our goal in this article is to illustrate the varied translingual practices that Mr. Armendarez and his
students engaged in during the Mariachi music class, and how Mr. Armendarez constructed identi-
ties for himself and his students through such practices. In the following section, based on recursive
analysis of our data, we first describe the translanguaging practices in the Mariachi classroom and
then explain the identity work embedded in those practices.

3.1  |  Research question 1: What translanguaging practices are embedded in

Mr. Armendarez’s classroom instruction and what purposes do they serve?

We observed that Mr. Armendarez conducted his class primarily in English although his Mariachi
repertoire was in Spanish. Nevertheless, Spanish and English were not treated as separate entities in
the Mariachi classroom. Indeed, Mr. Armendarez developed pedagogy that incorporated the fluid
and complex bilingual repertoires and identities of his students, normalizing bilingualism in his class
(Creese & Blackledge, 2015). This translingual pedagogy included a frequent reference to shared lin-
guistic and cultural elements, Spanish lyrics and English translations, and translingual performances,
which we describe in great detail below, in relation to identities constructed in the Mariachi classroom.

3.1.1  |  Frequent reference to shared linguistic and cultural elements

Our data analysis indicated the frequent reference to linguistic and cultural elements that Mr.
Armendarez and his students appeared to share. In his teaching, Mr. Armendarez aimed to make con-
nections with his students through such common linguistic and cultural elements:
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Excerpt 1 (First Interview)

I try to integrate, you know, commonalities, that most Hispanic Americans or Mexican
Americans encounter. Like for example, a lot of kids refer to their grandparents as nana
and tata, so when I talk to them I’ll be like, “Well, what would your nana think about this?
What would your tata think about that?” And they understand what that means.

Those cultural references allowed Mr. Armendarez and his students to bring “together different di-
mensions of their personal history, experience, and environment” (Creese & Blackledge, 2015, p. 26).
Mr. Armendarez’s frequent reference to shared linguistic and cultural elements also seemed to support his
students’ access to academic content:

Excerpt 2 (First Interview)

When I’m trying to describe certain things within my class, like for example how to mix
the different instrumentation but how they all blend to create one big collective product,
I compare it to things like menudo. You know, like a soup that we eat on a daily basis. I
always say, “Well, you would add the corn here. You would add the tripe here. You would
add the onions,” the—you know, things that they can relate to on a daily basis but try to
also tie that into how I teach.

The use of menudo was one of the many examples of translanguaging that appeared to help Mr.
Armendarez “include a stronger set of connections between home and school knowledges” (Langman,
2014, p. 195). The use of these linguistic and cultural elements by Mr. Armendarez invited students
to draw from their own home knowledge and identities as a foundation to establish this new academic
content as part of their repertoire. Their translanguaging was almost always culturally embedded as seen
in the following excerpt where students make reference to a Spanish professional football player (Gerard
Piqué Bernabeu) in an attempt to single out a classmate in a funny and friendly way:

Excerpt 3 (Class Interaction, April 6)

Mr. Armendarez:  Now, I’m giving you guys the lyrics so that we can memorize them because I still
know that—I’ve been watching you guys, and I see that some people are still faking the words.
Okay? … Uhm, if you guys wanna show exactly how masterful you guys are, that’s part of the
whole package. Okay?
Students:  Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Mr. Armendarez:  Okay. At a minimum, if you’re not gonna sing, at a minimum you have to mouth
the words. At a minimum. (A student utters another student’s name) Don’t call people out. He
knows who he is.
Students: (laughter)
Students:  Piqué Junior.
Mr. Armendarez:  We gotta come up with a name for [inaudible].
Students: [crosstalk] Piqué tito. (laughter).
Student 1:  There you go!
Mr. Armendarez:  Piqué tito. Órale, Piqué tito. He’s actually just as big as Piqué, too. Actually,
maybe Piqué’s a little bit bigger. He’s really big.
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In the conversation above, the students are being creative, an important aspect of translanguaging
(Canagarajah, 2011), as they offer a physical description, through cultural knowledge, for a classmate who
is known not to be good at memorizing the song lyrics. Excerpt 3 clearly indicates how rich contextual
knowledge is shared through translanguaging and mutually accepted by Mr. Armendarez and his students,
creating a sanctioned space in the classroom for students’ lives (Langman, 2014).

3.1.2  |  Spanish lyrics and English translations

Another noteworthy translanguaging practice in Mr. Armendarez’s classroom was his Spanish
song repertoire, which included the Spanish lyrics and English translations of each piece. For
Mr. Armendarez, Mariachi not only transmitted Mexican or Latinx culture but also found ways
to connect with others who did not come from or share the same sociocultural or sociohistorical
background. He was “supportive of all students through Mariachi” (The third interview with Mr.
Armendarez). Mr. Armendarez took the time to translate the Spanish lyrics into English or required
the students to translate them to make sure that monolingual English-speaking students could also
be involved:

Excerpt 4 (Second Interview)

For those who don’t have the background that I do, for example, when we’re learning
a song in Spanish, I always translate the lyrics into English so that whether you’re a
Spanish speaker or not, you’re able to connect the lyrics, the content of the song into
actually performing it. And it kind of uplifts the rest of the class because they see that
they’re actually putting an effort to integrate themselves into our culture as opposed to
what we encounter on a daily basis where Hispanic Americans are usually expected to
integrate into the broader American culture. In my class, it’s kind of like a switch, you
know? And so, it gives them the opportunity to experience that as well.

Mr. Armendarez’s reflection regarding the non-Hispanic students’ dealing with Spanish texts demon-
strates the transformative nature of his translingual pedagogy, as he provides unique experiences for those
students and “remove(s) the hierarchy of languaging practices that deem some more valuable than others”
(Creese & Blackledge, 2015, p. 26). Working with the Spanish lyrics and English translations enabled Mr.
Armendarez to promote bilingual literacy in the classroom for all students. Indeed, we observed often that
Mr. Armendarez focused on pronunciation of even some simple words to make sure that everyone could
learn and be involved. as shown in the following excerpt:

Excerpt 5 (Class Interaction, March 9)

Students:  (finishing singing)

Female Student 1:  Olé.
Male Student 1:  Are we saying olé at the end?
Mr. Armendarez:  All right-
Female Student 2:  Are we saying olé at the end?
Mr. Armendarez:  Yes, everybody has to say olé.
Female Student 3:  I don’t. I forget it.
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Mr. Armendarez:  Now, make sure we say olé and not oh lay.
Students:  Oh lay.
Mr. Armendarez:  It’s not oh lay, it's olé.
Male Student 2:  Olé!
Mr. Armendarez:  Olé! Like money. Money money money.
Mr. Armendarez:  All right, here we go.

In this short conversation with the students, Mr. Armendarez focuses on the pronunciation of
olé, but perhaps most significant in this excerpt is his pronunciation of the English word money. Mr.
Armendarez’s pronouncing the word money with a Spanish accent gives an implicit message that
there is nothing wrong with speaking English with a Spanish accent. This, in turn, breaks down the
static hegemonic ideology of accents being unfavorable and perhaps serves as “an important solidarity
function to reinforce a shared identity” (Ramos & Sayer, 2017, p. 49) among Mexican-Americans and
Latinx in the class.

3.1.3  |  Translingual music performances and concerts

From weddings to other special events, Mr. Armendarez and his students often engaged in outreach
activities and worked hard preparing for such service work. Their music performances within and
outside of the school context not only placed students in professional identity categories but also al-
lowed them to transfer translingual classroom practices to real life. In a study by Zapata and Laman
(2016), a second-grade teacher sought ways to bring translingual practices to life for her students by
inviting family and community members into the curriculum. In the Mariachi classroom, family and
community members were involved, but instead of them coming to class, the students served the fam-
ily and community through performing ensembles and giving concerts along with Mr. Armendarez.
Such active engagements with families and communities appeared to deepen the understandings of
languages and music in students’ lives. Mr. Armendarez described how he extended his translingual
practices to other contexts:

Excerpt 6 (First Interview)

Even though my art form is heavily focused on Mexico, I try to collaborate with other
teachers that may not have that background. For example, last week I had a conversation
with a modern dance teacher. And, I asked her if she'd be interested in collaborating. You
know, we have our Folklorico programs, which are also very heavily centered around
Mexico. We do joint performances all the time but I wanted to do something a little bit
different. And so I asked the jazz dance teacher if she’d be interested, and she was up
for it.

As seen in Mr. Armendarez’s description, the music performances and practices “were also produc-
tive in connecting students to larger goals and communities that extend beyond the classroom” (Daniel
& Pacheco, 2016, p. 660). His efforts in bringing together different kinds of music rooted in diverse
cultures are translanguaging acts through which Mr. Armendarez created “a discourse that goes beyond
autonomous languages that represent sole national or transnational identities” (García & Leiva, 2014,
p. 211).
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3.2  |  Research question 2: What kinds of identities does Mr. Armendarez

construct for himself and his students through translingual pedagogy?

As the data that we have presented so far indicate, Mr. Armendarez and his students engaged in
translingual practices for numerous purposes. Perhaps a significant function of translanguaging in the
Mariachi classroom was to construct and negotiate multiple identities, which we examine below in an
attempt to address our second research question.

3.2.1  |  Fluid third space identities

The translingual practices involving the life histories and experiences, classroom practices, and
“culturally embedded knowledge and skills” (Stewart & Hansen-Thomas, 2016, p. 467) shaped
the bilingual and bicultural identities of Mr. Armendarez and his students while at the same
time were shaped by the very same fluid multiple identities. Like the transnational student in
Stewart and Hansen-Thomas’s study (2016), neither Mr. Armendarez nor his students could be
“defined as a citizen of just one country, a speaker of one language, or a member of one cultural
group” or “the sum of two … languages or cultures” (p. 465). As seen in his description of his
background, Mr. Armendarez’s own language history and languaged identities were complex
and complicated:

Excerpt 7 (Second Interview)

I came from a household where my grandparents spoke only Spanish. My mom spoke
a little bit of both. My dad doesn’t speak any Spanish at all even though he’s Mexican
American, doesn’t speak any Spanish at all because of his upbringing.

Mr. Armendarez owned neither Spanish nor English. Instead, he used both languages exten-
sively and flexibly in a third space that he shared with his students regardless of their language
backgrounds and proficiencies. Mr. Armendarez did not see himself as a music teacher whose only
job was to share knowledge but saw himself as a passionate professional and critical educator, one
of whose primary tasks was to preserve the Mariachi music toward which he felt strong connec-
tions. He perceived teaching “as a way to preserve [their] music, this art that’s been around for
centuries” (Third interview). Mariachi, on its own, was perhaps the strongest translingual practice,
which combined linguistic and cultural practices and repertoires in authentic and yet complex ways
for Mr. Armendarez and his students in and outside of the classroom. Mr. Armendarez perceived
Mariachi as a tool that enabled him and his Mexican-American students to construct ethno-racial
identities that they were proud of. He described Mariachi “kind of like a visual and audio reminder”
(Third Interview) that legitimized his Mexican-American students’ linguistic, ethnic, and racial
identities:

Excerpt 8 (First Interview)

That’s kind of like a visual and audio reminder that hey, we’re here, we’re proud, and we
have the support to be able to do this music. It offers students a venue to express them-
selves culturally. The Mariachi gives them a sense of pride because they feel that they’re
being represented in one way or another.
KAYI-AYDAR and GREEN-ENEIX    
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Mariachi and the related translingual practices that the students were part of seemed to strengthen
family ties and helped Mr. Armendarez’s students (re)connect with their extended families, which was
important for their heritage identity development:

Excerpt 9 (Second Interview)

I know firsthand that it’s helped me develop my Spanish. And not only that but the con-
nections. When I was in high school, it made my grandparents super proud that I was
doing music that they recognized, that they grew up with, that they were immersed in.
And it was by my own choice that I did that. … And we can kind of meet halfway because
the music is what binds the two. And I see that happening with a lot of kids. And so it
helps to bring that common ground to bridge the generational gap, not just the linguistic
gap, you know?

3.2.2  |  Shared sociocultural identities

The sociocultural identities that Mr. Armendarez constructed for his students were relational; that is,
Mr. Armendarez recognized the powerful influence of Mariachi on his own linguistic and cultural
identities. Moreover, he was aware that he could construct similar identities for his students; identities
that were in line with his own. This identity work is evident in the following classroom interaction,
which took place at the beginning of a class session. After Mr. Armendarez’s hand gesture, he and his
students played Las Mañanitas; a “Happy Birthday” song in Spanish:

Excerpt 10 (March 2)

Class:  (singing in Spanish)

Mr. Armendarez:  Happy Birthday!
Female Student 1:  Happy Birthday.
Mr. Armendarez:  So, uhm, one of the ways that we communicate, sometimes non-verbally, this is
a signal for Mañanitas, what we’ve just played. It’s the Mexican birthday song. Uhm, it’s Juan’s
16th birthday today, so.
Female Student 2: Woo!
Mr. Armendarez:  We usually keep it like a secret. We always do this if we want to make it a secret
or we don’t want anybody to know. Uhm, but that’s one of the ways that we incorporate our cultural
heritage to this stuff, right? Yeah, we like to honor each other, um, through that. So, okay, so, what
do you guys want to do? Mi Ciudad?
Class:  Mi Ciudad.
Mr. Armendarez:  Mi Ciudad?
Class:  Mi Ciudad.
Mr. Armendarez: Okay.
Female 3: Yay.

[…]
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Mr. Armendarez:  Here we go. This song is, uhm, uh, it’s a song that was written in the late 60s or
early 70s. It’s called Mi Ciudad. It’s a song about Mexico City but it’s more poetic in nature.

In this excerpt, Mr. Armendarez deviates from his lesson plan and regular academic schedule and
sings a birthday song in Spanish along with the class for a student, through which he recognizes and
appreciates students’ social identities. His choice of singing in Spanish was not a random act but rather a
strategic translingual practice that enabled Mr. Armendarez to value and legitimize students’ sociocultural
identities. Mr. Armendarez functioned in a third space in which he also integrated the “familial culture”
(First Interview) to his instruction. This not only allowed him to combine his professional identities with
his personal ones but also to construct sociocultural identities for his students for belonging and as a way
to minimize the power differentials due to institutionalized student-teacher identities:

Excerpt 11 (Third Interview)

And that also helps me to build that culture, familial culture that I expect in my class.
One of my students refers to my wife as Mamá Camila, you know, because they see her
almost like as a second role model, as a mom figure as well. It’s something that you don’t
really encounter with a lot of teachers because a lot of teachers just want to separate
their professional life with their school life or home life.

As he encouraged his students to see him as a role model or even a family figure whom they could
trust, Mr. Armendarez perceived himself as “emotional support,” an important identity for him: “And so
by including my family in on that, it also helps to give them that additional support … to offer them that
emotional support that they may not encounter anywhere else.” (Third Interview).

4  |   D IS C U S SION
Studies show that teachers deploy their linguistic, cultural, and ethnic identities to interpret their role
as educators (e.g., Ajayi, 2011) and our findings are no exception. Like Latino teachers who viewed
their professional identities as advocates, role models, and change agents in numerous studies (e.g.,
Arce, 2004), Mr. Armendarez positioned himself as a critical educator who appeared to possess a criti-
cal understanding of language choice and use as well as society.
The personal and professional identities of Mr. Armendarez in his multilingual classroom could
be best understood through his classroom instruction and relationship with the students because
both of these contextual elements were significant as Mr. Armendarez claimed certain professional
identities in the classroom. In their study on novice ESL teachers’ identity development, Kanno and
Stuart (2011) found that identity and practice are mutually constitutive. This observation is evident
in the case of Mr. Armendarez, who strategically aligned his classroom instructional choices with
his professional identities. While translanguaging pedagogy enabled Mr. Armendarez to form and
present his desired identities, he could maintain those identities through the strong rapport and
relationships he built with his students. These findings support the relational nature of identity
formation as depicted in various studies on language teacher identities (e.g., Morgan, 2004). In
other words, Mr. Armendarez’s professional and personal identities were inseparable from those of
his students. If his students had resisted or rejected Mr. Armendarez’s translanguaging practices or
the identities that he constructed for them, Mr. Armendarez would not have been able to project his
desired sociocultural identities and his professional sense of self would have become vulnerable and
KAYI-AYDAR and GREEN-ENEIX    
|  13 of 17

constrained. We, therefore, argue that in understanding the identities of teachers, one cannot isolate
students.
In a study by Huang and Varghese (2015), the teachers in a U.S. secondary ESL program per-
sonalized their teaching roles and identities in light of their prior learning and personal histories.
Similarly, Mr. Armendarez personalized his sociocultural identities by choosing to teach Mariachi and
be a “language-focused teacher” (Huang & Varghese, 2015, p. 70). Huang and Varghese argue that
personalized professional identities help increase teachers’ level of “comfort and confidence in being
professionals” (p. 70), which is indeed what we observed in Mr. Armendarez.
Mr. Armendarez built a classroom space where his students could construct expert identities
and claim their full sociolinguistic repertoire. The pedagogical activities that he created around the
Mariachi music enabled him and his students to claim their bilingual identities, “deploy repertoires
rather than languages in communication” (Creese & Blackledge, 2015, p. 23), and embrace their
heritage. As our analysis indicated in this article, Mr. Armendarez’s translingual practices thus went
beyond standard linguistic practices only. Indeed, translanguaging in the Mariachi classroom included
a diverse spectrum of cultures, languages, identities, and music, all of which were interrelated and
intertwined in complex ways.
In the majority of the studies on translanguaging, the focus is on how translingual pedagogy
or practices promote emergent bilinguals’ literacy acquisition and skills or “liberate the voices
of language-minoritized students” (Creese & Blackledge, 2015, p. 26). Unlike the participants
in those studies, our student participants in the Mariachi classroom were all highly proficient in
English. Therefore, the translingual practices were not used for teaching languages; at least not
primarily. Instead, translanguaging served as a vehicle for students to comprehend new information
and develop bilingual and bicultural repertoires that allowed Mr. Armendarez and his students to
situate themselves in the societal, communal, and educational context. While those practices al-
lowed White students to challenge, by actively participating in both English and Spanish, typical
hegemonic language ideologies that they may have held, they offered a space for CLD students
to have an opportunity to develop and project desired sociocultural and linguistic identities. Mr.
Armendarez’s respect and support for the use of both English and Spanish promoted the develop-
ment of a wide array of sociocultural and languaged identities in an emotionally safe environment,
supporting the findings of previous studies (e.g., Langman, 2014; Makalela, 2015; Palmer et al.,
2014). While translanguaging pedagogy may allow minoritized teachers, those who experience
marginalization or discrimination due to their language, ethnic, or racial backgrounds, to maintain
and authenticate their identities, it also allows those teachers to help their minoritized students do
the same, as this study shows.
In our study, we focused on the Mariachi classroom as a whole and paid attention to Mr.
Armendarez’s students as a collective body. We hope that future studies investigate translingual peda-
gogy or practices at the individual rather than the group level, contributing to further theorizations of
and understandings about translanguaging.

5  |  IM P L ICAT ION S A N D CONCLUSION

Mr. Armendarez was not an ESL teacher but he held an endorsement. If regular classroom teachers
like Mr. Armendarez are not recognized as TESOL professionals, these teachers may never take up
such a professional position for their multilingual students. Therefore, it is necessary for the TESOL
field to push research on teacher identities beyond English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL)
contexts. The scholarship should propel “thinking” beyond binary teacher identity categories, such as
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|     KAYI-AYDAR and GREEN-ENEIX

native speaker/nonnative speaker, domestic/international, or monolingual/bilingual. Further research

is therefore needed in understanding the intersectional identities of teachers, in particular, teachers of
color in multilingual K-12 classrooms. Introducing preservice teachers to translanguaging pedagogy
will help them challenge such binary identity categories and encourage them in “developing more
positive conceptualizations of their identities as multilingual teachers” (N. Flores & Aneja, 2017, p.
441).
At a more practical level, TESOL teacher education programs should invite teachers of color teach-
ing multilingual students to share their stories with preservice teachers and reflect together on the
identity work that takes place in the classroom. Extending practicum or internship opportunities to
diverse pedagogical contexts, like a Mariachi classroom, can also provide eye-opening experiences
for preservice teachers, especially in understanding language use in instructional settings other than
language classrooms, and unique opportunities for professional growth. Given the tremendous func-
tion of translanguaging in empowering minoritized identities, it is important for bi/multilingual teach-
ers to realize their own multilingual repertoires and find ways to integrate them into their teaching.
That said, while we recognize the powerful nature of translanguaging, we deliberately avoid drawing
causational links between teacher identities and translanguaging classroom practices or instructing
practitioners how they should implement translanguaging pedagogy. We can only hope that the pos-
itive and constructive actions of Mr. Armendarez that we described in this article offer insights for
TESOL professionals as they implement a social justice–oriented pedagogy that recognizes the inter-
sectional identities of teachers and students in the multilingual classrooms.

6  |  T H E AU T HOR S

Hayriye Kayi-Aydar is an associate professor of English applied linguistics/TESOL at the University

of Arizona. Her research interests include teacher identity, teacher agency, and positioning theory. She
authored the monograph Positioning Theory in Applied Linguistics (2019) and co-edited Theorizing
and Analyzing Language Teacher Agency (2019).
Curtis A. Green-Eneix is a doctoral student in the Second Language Studies Program at Michigan
State University. He currently investigates areas surrounding teacher identity and agency, teacher ed-
ucation, and language policy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to extend our gratitude to the Spencer Foundation for funding this research project.
We also would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of this special issue, Drs. Kristen
Lindahl and Bedrettin Yazan, for their insightful comments and constructive feedback on the multiple
drafts of this article. Finally, we are grateful to Mr. Armendarez and his students for their participation
in our study.

ORCID
Curtis Green-Eneix  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5036-959X

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How to cite this article: Kayi-Aydar H, Green-Eneix C. Shared identities through

translanguaging practices in the multilingual mariachi classroom. TESOL J. 2019;10:e502. https​://
doi.org/10.1002/tesj.502