In this qualitative study, I examine the intersections of learner
identity, power, and language through the experiences and insights of Latina/o 2nd-generation middle-class children who occupy a unique positionality between the discourses surrounding
bilingual education. Through narrative inquiry, emerging bilingual middle-class students actualize nonbinary thinking, able to
depict identity as an inherently multifaceted process of construction. Their ways of knowing and experiences as language learners
ultimately shape an outsider-within space, rupturing traditional
binaries within bilingual education, namely EO/EL (English only
versus English learner) and class binaries. They also proffer queer
and cyber identities as additional salient variables that plow into
language identity. In the end, these learners frame the contradiction and nuance of language learner identity, not as one of struggle, but as one of differential agency, the ability to move in and
out of contradictory identities as both strong and advantageous
tactics.