Stewards of the language: liminality and transnational sovereignty

Abstract

AbstractIn this article we introduce the language practices of a group of Indigenous Maya students at an elementary school in northern California. We discuss how liminal experience in migration foregrounds an awareness of becoming and embodying multiple selves and of using multiple languages across the home, school, and community. Through an analysis of interview data from a three and a half-year ethnographic project at the school, we focus on two students’ strategies for learning and stewarding their Indigenous language. Their use and awareness of language offer examples of Indigenous resurgence and futurity as the young generation reclaims language in acts of transnational sovereignty. We argue that these students’ translanguaging practices represent their everyday actions as stewards of the language, and that in the process of learning their Indigenous language, these students enact forms of transnational sovereignty.