Quítate tú pa’ ponerme yo: Teacher activism in the Milwaukee movement for developmental bilingual education

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing from oral history interviews and archival data from a nine-month ethnography, this article examines the activist practices of foundational bilingual teachers in Milwaukee’s movement to launch Spanish/English bilingual-bicultural education (BBE). We use theories of critical consciousness to interpret the educators’ daily activism as crucial yet under-acknowledged work that helped sustain BBE in the city’s public schools after public protests had subsided. Ultimately, we argue that two foundational Latina bilingual teachers’ activism deepened the movement’s explicit challenge to white supremacist monoglossia. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for contemporary educators and multilingual movements for educational justice.