Amidst the current climate surrounding bilingual education in the U.S., this study looked critically at the ways language education policies informed bilingual education as language was constructed and performed in a dual language bilingual, Spanish-English, third-grade classroom. This four-year ethnographic study explored the hegemonic realities of TWDLI classrooms and the role language played in affording and restricting the types of talk that occurred. Two primary findings were: (1) the tensions embedded in contexts of language and power gave way to restrictionist policies that both protected and constrained the types of talk that occurred; and (2) translanguaging manifested during both dominant language instruction as well as unrestricted spontaneous language events as participants exercised agentive power while negotiating both covert and over policies through resistance capitals.