Chinese Immigrant Parents' Family Language Policy as Shaped by Their Racialized Experiences: An AsianCrit Perspective

• In Event: Raising Bilingual Children: Asian Immigrant Parents' Experiences in and Across Home, School, and Community Spaces

Abstract

Throughout U.S. history, there has always been an expectation of linguistic assimilation into English (Wiley, 2014), and immigrant students often face challenges in maintaining their heritage language (HL) as they acquire English language proficiency (Fillmore, 2000; Li & Wen, 2015). Among all the language minoritized groups, Asian Americans are especially vulnerable to HL loss (Pew Research Center, 2012). To counter the HL loss, families are serving the most important role (Curdt-Christiansen & Lanza, 2018) through implementing family language policy (FLP), which includes parents’ language ideologies, practices, and management (Curdt-Christiansen, 2018). This paper explores Chinese immigrant parents’ FLP towards their children’s HL maintenance, with a specific focus on how parents’ FLP are shaped by their own racialized experiences.

Author

• Wenyang Sun, University of Utah