A Seat at the Table: Black & Latinx Teachers Reimagining Multilingual Classrooms as Culturally Sustaining Spaces for Black Children

Abstract Critical scholarship has collectively challenged multilingual spaces as operating under a Latinx/Anglo dualism that excludes the knowledge, voices, and experiences of young Black children. Therefore, we must reimagine multilingual spaces that are not only inclusive of Black languages and literacies; but also see them as vital resources that contribute to linguistic justice for Black children in multilingual classrooms. Based on a qualitative study that drew upon case study and ethnographic methods with multiple data sources to explore how teachers of Black and other students of Color reimagined their classrooms with Black languages and literacies at the center, this paper utilizes culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSPs) to proclaim the importance of affirming and maintaining the languages and literacies of Black children and other children of Color. To that end, CSPs calls upon educators to intentionally invite practices that value linguistic flexibility in schools and classrooms. Findings demonstrated that teachers of multilingual classrooms who utilized CSPs consistently engaged in a process of critical consciousness that included challenging language policies, mandated curriculum, and unlearning classroom norms that rejected Black languages and literacies. Additionally, Black and Latinx teachers invited children to freedom dream and negotiate ways to bring Black languages and literacies to the forefront with them. In doing so, teachers and students were able to create communities of resistance that ensured the steadfastness of CSPs that centered young Black children's literary gifts.