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ESPERANZA Y ESCALOFRIOS: BILINGUAL TEACHER PERSPECTIVES IN AN ERA OF POLYCRISIS

RAQUEL AGUILAR

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PUBLISHED IN:

 Volume 2, Issue 4, December  2025

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70144/ra020402me

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ABSTRACT:

Amid escalating anti-diversity initiatives and renewed support for English-only education, bilingual educators confront a polycrisis of political, institutional, and ideological instability. This qualitative study examines how five bilingual teachers working in dual language elementary programs navigate these shifting conditions. Grounded in Latinx Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) and humanizing pedagogy, the study explores how educators conceptualize bilingual education as both pedagogical and political. Semi-structured interviews and cross-case thematic analysis reveal persistent challenges, including resource scarcity, policy inconsistency, and intensive emotional and professional labor. Yet participants also described strong commitments to equity, cultural identity, and translanguaging (García, 2009) as central to their practice. Findings demonstrate how bilingual educators enact resilience, resistance, and care as they work to sustain linguistically inclusive learning spaces despite structural precarity. We argue that bilingual teachers serve as cultural and political stewards of democratic education, and that their expertise must be centered in program design, resource allocation, and policy reform.​​​​