A limited body of research has investigated English language teacher educators’ positionalities and pedagogies (Peercy & Sharkey, 2018; Yazan, 2019), particularly with respect to translanguaging. To that end, the purpose of this critical autoethnography, or what I will later describe as a nos/otras autoethnography (Anzaldúa, 2015), is for me to examine my ideological reckoning and translanguaging reimagining as a language teacher (LT) and language teacher educator (LTE) based on the following questions:1. How did my ideological stance as a language educator shift across my pre-service and in-service LT experiences as well as my first years as an LTE? 2. How did my interactions in a nepantla contact zone catalyze and sustain my ideological reckoning and translanguaging reimagining as a White, English-dominant speaking, U.S.-born, beginning LTE? I frame this study within the narrative traditions of Gloria Anzaldúa (2012, 2015), whose work consistently defied linguistic conventions and critiqued the U.S. history of linguistic terrorism and settler-colonization. I draw upon her theorization of (des)conocimientos, nos/otras, and nepantla (Anzaldúa, 2015) in order to (1) reckon with the influence of assimilationist language ideologies (Irvine, 1989; Wollard, 1998) on my own language learning and teaching, and (2) to reimaging my language pedagogy through more heteroglossic (Bakhtin, 1981; García, 2009) and translanguaging (Williams, 1994, 1996; García & Li Wei, 2014) perspectives. Specifically, I bring together Anzaldúa’s (2015) theorization of nepantla with the notion of contact zones (Pratt, 1991; Canagarajah, 2013) to describe the collision, fracturing and transformation that emerged through the intentional juxtaposition of beliefs, identities, language practices, and experiences as a part of my participation in a collaborative self-study group named Transnetworking for TESOL Teachers (TTT. I begin by tracing my “Ideological Starting Point,” narrating my language and educational history from childhood through my undergraduate teacher preparation program; I also provide a brief account of my eight years as an LT and my first two years as an LTE (1985-2018). Next, I narrate my “Ideological Reckoning” through consideration of data generated during my early experiences as a LTE before zooming into my experience as a part of TTT, a collaborative self-study group committed to exploring translanguaging. In the final findings chapter, I describe my “Bodymindsoul Transformation,” which overlaps with and extends beyond my interactions with TTT to more closely explore my personal self-study as a LTE. This study illustrates that the overlapping and iterative self-study conducted as a part of TTT emboldened me to contend with my complicity in perpetuating English language education as white supremacist settler-colonial enterprise and to pursue new opportunities to expand my own translanguaging capacity. Hence, this study suggests critical self-reflexivity and collaborative inquiry in what I am calling nepantla contact zones (Pratt, 1991; Canagarajah, 2013; Anzaldúa, 2015) can galvanize white, English-dominant LTs and LTEs to reckon with their own positionalities and reimagine English language education. I conclude with implications for translanguaging, autoethnographic approaches to research, and language teacher education.
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