(Re)Imagining Linguistic Justice Through Pláticas: Dual Language Educators’ Perspectives on Restorative Practices

This dissertation examines the pervasive impacts of linguistic imperialism in U.S. dual language classrooms, focusing on restorative language justice practices designed to address the harm caused by manifestations of linguistic oppression, including language policing, linguistic surveillance, and language discrimination (Cameron, 2014; Tuck & Yang, 2012). Grounded in LangCrit (Crump, 2014) and Raciolinguistics (Flores & Rosa, 2015), this study centers the voices and lived experiences of minoritized bilingual educators in Central Washington and Southern California, highlighting their insights and calls for transformation within bilingual education. Through pláticas en grupo (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016), dual language educators co-created restorative practices that challenge entrenched linguistic hierarchies while empowering multilingual students and families. By analyzing educators' reflections, this dissertation offers co-constructed, actionable solutions for disrupting the oppressive structures that persist in dual language programs (García, 2009; Paris, 2012). Ultimately, this work envisions dual language classrooms as spaces of linguistic freedom, inclusion, and multilingual empowerment. This dissertation contributes to the ongoing mission of linguistic reparations and challenges the monolingual ideologies, norms, and expectations that have long subordinated multilingualism (Baker-Bell, 2020; Phillipson, 1992).