This three-article dissertation is a qualitative exploration of language ideologies and discourse regarding the English language’s role in Puerto Rico’s (PR) education, politics, and culture. Centering the perspectives of civically engaged youth (CEY) and adhering to critical and decolonial theoretical frameworks, I explore how Puerto Ricans conceptualize the English language and its value at macro, meso, and micro levels. The first article provides a history of English language policies in PR. I perform a thematic analysis of archival newspaper data, political platforms, and politician and educational professional discourse to gain a nuanced understanding of the historical and current sociolinguistic discourse around English in the archipelago. I find that PR politicians use English as a bargaining tool to garner support, while they ignore the citizenry’s educational needs. Many educators, parents, and researchers have first-hand knowledge of the public education system’s dire needs that must be addressed to ensure successful language education programs. This knowledge is ignored by PR’s politicians. To explore language ideologies regarding English from a mid-level view, I interviewed twelve CEYs to understand their perceptions, ideals, and experiences regarding English language use in PR. I then interpreted the language ideologies that inform CEYs’ interactions with, and perspectives of, the English language. I find that CEYs have complex, fluid, and nuanced beliefs about the English language. With these beliefs, they make room for resisting the traditional dichotomous views between English/Spanish that constrain us to Western ways of thinking, and they create opportunities to affirm their own knowledge and experiences as legitimate. In the third article, I explore English language use at a micro-level. This involves examining English language use in activism and community work organizations’ official websites and social media platforms. I find that organizations use English not only in nominal ways (to refer to technology terms, United States (US) institutions and more) but also in complex and engaging ways such as citation of Black and Decolonial scholars and disseminating protective language.

The growth of electronic sports (esports) is undeniable. One dimension of esports’ growth can be seen in its adoption as an extracurricular club activity across an increasing number of high schools in the United States. Researchers and educators in literacy have increasingly recognized and emphasized the study of students’ everyday lives and interests, calling for responsiveness to the ways students actually experience literacies versus how they are traditionally taught. In this respect, the popularity of esports in high schools positions it as an activity in the everyday lives of an increasing number of students. As such, this dissertation project explored the topic of esports in high schools through a lens of multiliteracies and digital-age literacies. This work addresses an important knowledge gap because students are converging to reveal an ecosystem where they are drawing from and building on their everyday literacies in non-trivial ways. And although there is a growing body of multidisciplinary scholarly work on esports, relatively little work has explored esports in high schools. Therefore, I asked the overarching question: How are digital-age multiliteracies taking place in high school esports contexts? Specifically, I focused on the digital-age literacy practices, demands, and perspectives in high school esports. Guided by research questions on these three topics, I carried out a study of two high school esports clubs for 22 weeks. This study was guided by qualitative, interpretive, naturalistic, ethnographic, and case study research designs. My findings describe six assertions: (1) literacy practices were used to engage with each other in communal and competitive ways; (2) the social functions of esports’ literacy practices take precedence over scholastic goals; (3) literacy demands of esports emphasize unambiguous and timely multimodal communication for managing teams and scheduling events; (4) literacy demands of high school esports focus on multidimensional fluencies between what is on and what is around the screens; (5) participants characterize the engagement with esports as positively contributing to “belonging”, of a “safe space”, and of opportunities for “critical thinking”; and (6) participants characterize their engagement with high school esports as positively contributing to future occupational or educational preparedness and health.