Abstract

This thesis is a collage1 of philosophical reflections---a philosophical mestizaje2 that seeks to contribute to the understanding of the key values that the field of bilingual education is dedicated to: promotion of freedom and human authenticity. It explores the struggles for freedom and human authenticity that bicultural and bilingual individuals wage in the spaces behind the border and derives the key features of a word that can offer a paradigm for a liberating act. ;Mikhail Bakhtin, Paulo Freire, and Lev Vygotsky are the central authoritative voices for the discussion. The voices of bicultural and bilingual immigrant writers contribute experiential evidence to corroborate the arguments and benefit the field from the emerging discussion on the unifying aspects of otherwise socioculturally specific notions of human authenticity and freedom that are explored as mutually implicating each other. The sociocultural specificity of these notions appears to be at the core of the conflict that can initiate liberating acts in the lives of bicultural and bilingual individuals. ;Unfinishedness, dialogicality, and ability to transform creatively the existing conditions are the top characteristics of an authentic human consciousness requiring freedom to fulfill its potential. Authentic freedom emerges from its dialogic struggle with authority. An individual free to incarnate these characteristics of an authentic human being is engaged in the labor of dialogically co-authoring the spaces in which free words and acts are born, and responsibly owning the products of this labor. This thesis suggests a variety of paths , spaces , and tools that underlie the acts that can potentially liberate the willing individuals from inauthentic existence. ;1Richards, D. . 2Anzaldua, G.