Purpose Given the limited discussion of race among Asian (Americans) in both mainstream and DLBE classrooms, and the pressing need to facilitate children’s critical racial consciousness, the authors worked with two bilingual teachers in a Mandarin-English DLBE program to co-design an innovative anti-racist biliteracy curriculum integrating Asian (American) histories and lived experiences to disrupt the dominant discourse of anti-Asian and foster senses of critical racial consciousness and multiracial solidarity within the school. In this paper, the authors aims to answer the following research question: How do Asian (American) students in a fifth-grade Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) Chinese/English classroom negotiate their understanding of racism and anti-Asian discourse through literacy engagement with racially-conscious children’s literature and texts? Design/methodology/approach This study uses a participatory method within an AsianCrit-informed translanguaging theoretical framework to explore the development of critical consciousness and multiracial solidarity in a 5th grade DLBE Chinese/English program through a researcher-teacher co-designed Asian (American) anti-racist biliteracy lesson incorporating Asian (American) children’s literature and lived experiences. Findings The findings reveal that students demonstrated (1) an enhanced ability to confront Asian (American) oppressions and white supremacy, (2) increased recognition of racism beyond Black/white binary and (3) the emergent critical racial consciousness. These findings suggest that intentional integration of Asian (American) racially conscious content in DLBE programs can serve as an effective means of promoting critical consciousness of race and fostering interracial understanding among emerging bilinguals. This study contributes to the growing body of research on critical pedagogy in bilingual education and offers practical insights for educators seeking to cultivate anti-racist awareness in diverse classroom settings. Research limitations/implications While this study focused on a single classroom and focal text, its implications are broader. It offers a replicable model for integrating translanguaging and AsianCrit-informed curriculum into DLBE programs that too often sideline Asian (American) histories and racial justice concerns. By reimagining DLBE not just as a linguistic space but as a space for equity and transformation, this work contributes to the growing movement toward justice-centered bilingual education. Practical implications The learners in this study gradually developed an emerging activist stance as they reflected on historical and contemporary racial injustices, demonstrating that critical consciousness is not beyond the grasp of elementary-aged children. However, cultivating this consciousness should not be a “hit-and-run” effort isolated to language arts. To sustain this work, DLBE programs must take a program-wide approach, infusing criticality across disciplines and ensuring that discussions of race, power and identity are not relegated to isolated lessons. This includes providing sustained professional development, fostering collaborative curriculum planning and creating structural support for teachers navigating sociopolitical tensions around race and language. Social implications Framed through the lens of AsianCrit and translanguaging, this study also addresses how educators and policymakers can better meet the unique educational needs of Asian (American) students in a post-pandemic context marked by rising anti-Asian racism. While Chinese-English DLBE programs have grown rapidly in the USA (Lee, 2009; Mandarin Immersion Parents Council, 2026), they are often shaped by neoliberal logics that frame Mandarin as an elite language and marginalize Chinese American voices. This study disrupts such tendencies by demonstrating that DLBE classrooms – when grounded in anti-racist, culturally sustaining pedagogy – can be transformative sites for identity affirmation and cross-racial coalition-building. Originality/value This study offers timely insights into how a biliteracy curriculum that centers Asian (American) histories and voices can cultivate critical racial consciousness among students of Color in Chinese–English DLBE programs. In response to growing calls to move beyond traditional DLBE goals of bilingualism, biliteracy and cross-cultural competence (Howard et al., 2018; Cervantes-Soon et al., 2017; Palmer et al., 2019), the findings highlight how young multilingual students can engage in complex racial analysis and empathy-building when provided with identity-affirming texts and critical pedagogical guidance.
Guo et al. (Mon,) studied this question.