Alexis McBride
Students from immigrant backgrounds comprise a growing share of community college enrollments in the United States, yet comparatively little is known about how linguistically minoritized (LM) learners experience remediation coursework as they transition into postsecondary writing contexts. Drawing on translanguaging theory and adopting a poststructural account of identity and investment, this study examines how a translation-centered translanguaging activity can function as an identity-affirming literacy practice in a remedial college writing context. Six Spanish-English bilingual students completed a translation task, an exit interview, and a brief feedback survey; this article presents an in-depth analysis of two focal cases. Using grounded theory coding informed by a theoretically guided analytic lens and critical discourse analysis, we show how participants mobilized metalinguistic awareness, stance-taking, and audience sensitivity to negotiate meaning across linguistic features. Findings suggest that when designed as an integrated repertoire practice rather than a strict transfer of two named languages, translation can operationalize a translanguaging space that supports identity construction and recontextualizes bilingual competence as an academic resource rather than a deficit.