Unlocking the transformative power of dynamic bilingualism: co-constructing a translanguaging space with Chinese American children

Asian American bilingual children navigate their language practices and identities within monolingual and monocultural spaces shaped by racialized stereotypes, such as the 'model minority' and 'forever foreigner'. These spaces impose linguistic and cultural borders, forcing Chinese American bilingual children to choose between English monolingualism or heritage language monolingualism. This qualitative case study explores the co-construction of a translanguaging space with five Chinese American children in a five-week Chinese Language and culture workshop, where the children engage in collaborative translanguaging to communicate and accomplish tasks. The findings highlight that when translanguaging spaces are co-constructed with bilingual children, they actively expressed their identities, and asserted their agency and expertise as bilingual and bicultural individuals. In turn, these practices shaped and reshaped the translanguaging space, making the space a site of transformation that provided a more complex and critical understanding of the children' bilingual identities and Chinese American identities. This study joins the effort to reimagine a space of linguistic and social justice – a translanguaging space – for Asian American bilingual children, calling for a shift from a teacher-centred approach to an approach that centralises students' agency and power in constructing and transcending the linguistic boundaries in educational settings.