Literacies of Surveillance at Home: Transfronterizo Children Translanguaging Identity for Respeto

This is a presentation of a multiple case-study focused on the everyday language and literacy practices of transfronterizo children—children who experience life on both sides of the U.S.-México border—in order to understand how children “read and write” themselves as constantly surveilled subjects across contexts (Anzaldúa, 1987). Drawing on sociocultural theory, border inspections and translanguaging, this study examined the children’s home experiences. The findings revealed that children “read” the border of respeto and ingeniously “wrote” a sanctioned identity through the embodiment of parallel monolingual Spanish-English language and literacy practices when being under parents’ surveillance. Similarly, they also recognized the unsurveilled moments and engaged in translanguaging that demonstrated the complexity of a borderless, bilingual and biliterate identity.