Heritage Language Maintenance Matters: Tracing the Trajectory of a Mother in a Chinese Dual-Language Bilingual Education Program

• In Event: Equitable Perspectives to Language and Growth Trajectories in Policy and Programs

Abstract

We present a biographical case study of a Chinese heritage speaker mother to theorize and explicate how historical, relational, and spatial processes impacted a Chinese American mother’s negotiation with power and agency in relation to her own heritage language (HL) identity development. We show the importance of normalizing Chinese as a HL outside of the home in terms of language maintenance as well as the impact such normalization has on the development of an affirmative Chinese HL identity. We add that it is not enough for the HL alone to be given great value in society. It is also highly important for that value to be connected to the interests and investments of families with respect to the HL.

Authors

• Vashti Wai Yu Lee, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author

• Lee Her, Lehigh University
  Presenting Author

• Peter I. De Costa, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author