As pointed out by Ana Celia Zentella and other linguistic anthropologists in the current era of resurgent xenophobia, linguistic intolerance and negative comments about language are prevalent, as they now serve as “disguised ways of voicing venomous stereotypes of race and ethnicity in public” (Zentella 2010, 2016; Urciuoli 2001) and are a means to shore up what is otherwise a fragile hegemony predicated on a monoglossic language ideology within educational institutions (Nelson & Rosa 2017; Paris & Alim 2017). Yet, students’ ways of speaking connect them to their homes and communities (Wong Fillmore 1996; Garcia-Sanchez & Orellana 2019) and to denigrate children' language(s) is to denigrate who they are. This is a truth that many systems of education are unable to face and it is our responsibility to provide convincing and sociolinguistically nuanced case studies to persuade and assist educators, parents and children themselves to hear anew rather than fear or denigrate children’s linguistic diversity. Such models are necessary in particular to support and inspire daring educators who can and do sustain and leverage children’s expertise as a legitimate and generative means to expand linguistic repertoires and associated forms of knowledge production. The papers in this panel approach this issue from a variety of linguistic anthropological perspectives and across a variety of school settings and contexts of language contact. We consider early childhood, as this is a time of great openness and promise, when children can learn best and benefit most from exposure to different languages, and when parents have great influence before there has been too much institutional influence from the majority culture. Across the papers we see strategies of success that leverage and celebrate the linguistic diversity of young children at the same time that we use linguistic anthropological tools to unearth hidden negative ideologies towards the race and languages of the children. Understanding these strategies and ideologies may contribute to linguistic anthropological research and assist parents and educators in providing more culturally sustaining practices for young children. Garcia-Sanchez, I. & Orellana, M.F. (2019). Language and Cultural Practices in Communities and Schools: Bridging learning for students from non-dominant groups New York: Routledge. Paris, D. & Alim, H. Samy (2017). Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World (Language and Literacy Series). NY: Teachers College. Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society, 46(5), 621-647. Wong Fillmore, L. (1996). What happens when languages are lost? An essay on language assimilation and cultural identity. In D. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratzis, and J. Guo (eds.), Social Interaction, Social Context and Language: Essays in Honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp, pp. 435-446. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Urciuoli, B. (2001). The complex diversity of language in the U.S. In Cultural Diversity in the United States: A Critical Reader, eds. Ida Susser & Thomas Carl Patterson, 190-205. MA: Blackwell.
 Zentella, A. C. (2016). "Socials," "Poch@s," "Normals" y los demas: School Networks and Linguistic Capital of High School Students on the Tijuana/San Diego Border.