Using a Xicana Feminist Framework in Bilingual Teacher Preparation: Toward an Anticolonial Path

Abstract

This article intentionally proposes the use of anticolonial Xicana feminisms as a theoretical foundation for Spanish–English bilingual teacher preparation programs that serve a majority of Latinx aspiring teachers. An anticolonial Xicana feminist framework is imperative in order to prepare bilingual teachers to confront and counter the growing neoliberal ideologies that are co-opting the goals of bilingual/dual language education today and that run the risk of further marginalizing Latinx language minoritized students, particularly in rapidly gentrifying urban communities and regions experiencing a recent Latinx population boom. The article analyzes the theoretical and pedagogical processes that would help prospective teachers challenge the legacies of colonization, imperialism, and Eurocentric heteropatriarchy in order to forge an anticolonial path in bilingual education in four interrelated areas: vision, identities, languages, and pedagogies.