In this chapter, I present a conceptual framework for understanding the perspectives used as lenses to examine the construct of Black immigrant literacies in this book. The chapter begins with a historicizing of multiliteracies and translanguaging followed by a description of the way in which literacy has emerged as a sociocultural and multimodal practice. Raciolinguistics, a raciolinguistic perspective, transracialization, as well as language and raciosemiotic architecture are then presented in tandem, highlighting how linguistic and broader semiotic affordances work based on ideologies steeped in racialized language and semiotics. In turn, raciolinguistic and raciosemiotic ideologies influencing multiliteracies of Black immigrant youth are discussed as well as mechanisms such as a transraciolinguistic approach which function as an avenue for understanding how Black immigrants leverage literacies in relation to peers. Following this, translanguaging based on an integrated model of multilingualism is presented along with a description of the ways in which Black immigrants’ language practices have been examined and intersect to undergird the current study regarding the literacies of Black immigrant youth. In doing so, connections across these concepts as well as the potential influence of race-based ideologies for clarifying Black immigrants’ multiliteracies are illuminated through attention to translanguaging and transsemiotizing with Englishes.

More often than not, the advent of contemporary information and communication technologies is presented as one of the great success stories of contemporary schooling, and while ICT has the potential to be a transformative force in education, the issues are complicated and the outcomes far from certain. The field is often divided into those who grew up with such technologies ߝ ‘digital natives’/students ߝ and those who have come to these technologies at a later date ߝ ‘digital immigrants’/teachers. This binary articulates a central problem within a power relation where teachers are normally expected to know more than those they teach. Furthermore, such new technologies do not simply represent mechanisms for accessing more information more quickly and in more interesting ways. By stepping outside the domain of traditional linear texts, traditional understandings of literacy start to lose their meaning. New digital technologies necessitate the adoption of the notion of ‘multiliteracies’, a plural understanding of literacy that encompasses a range of other modes of contemporary meaning-making ߝ hypertext, audio, video and so on ߝ which are integral to the digital universe.

This chapter presents perspectives and implications for the classroom to lay out a research agenda toward continued development of our understanding of the ways Spanish heritage learners develop biliteracy for academic and professional purposes. Multilingualism is an increasingly growing phenomenon in our globalized society and the learning and teaching of minority languages in schools require a more adequate approach that could address differences in use (professional, social, etc.) as well as differences in users of the language (ethnic or cultural). The changing landscape of Spanish biliteracy teaching and learning in educational institutions is examined and the concept of a holistic and functional approach to developing advanced literacy in institutional contexts is presented. The chapter considers how the experience of meaning-making is negotiating discourse differences in many social contexts, i.e., new literacies and multiliteracies are embodied in new social practices.