The storied lives of fronteriza bilingual maestras : constructing language and literacy ideologies in nepantla

This dissertation examines the language and literacy ideologies of in-service fronteriza bilingual education maestras utilizing a life story methodology. Drawing on an indigenous research paradigm and three theoretical frameworks that accentuate the lived experiences of fronteriza teachers—nepantla, border thinking, and raciolinguistic perspective—this study addresses how the life stories of fronteriza teachers illuminate their construction of language and literacy ideologies. Findings unsettle the mismatch between articulated and embodied language ideologies and demonstrate that the contradictions that manifest in home, school, and community language ideologies are an aspect of living in nepantla. The findings reveal that bilingual maestras’ language and literacy ideologies are influenced by their personal lived experiences, macro-hegemonic discourses, and the history of geopolitical spaces. As bilingual education becomes engrossed in neoliberal logics, implications for utilizing border thinking and anticolonial practices with in-service and pre-service teachers are discussed. In studying fronteriza bilingual teachers that inhabit a unique geopolitical space along the Texas-Mexico border, this dissertation contributes to the larger debate regarding the multiplicity of embodied and articulated language ideologies in bilingual settings.