Feeling Not Asian Enough: Issues of Heritage‐Language Loss, Development, and Identity

Abstract

This department explores how teachers can sustain students’ multilingual literacies and reimagine literacy learning across multiple contexts in conversation with researchers, practitioners, and communities.

Teaching While Becoming: The Transnational Expertise of a Korean Immigrant Youth‐Educator

“…While Jieun had a clear view of the many benefits that HL development can offer to immigrant youth, she was aware that HL loss and shift were prevalent among her bilingual peers. As she described her peers' linguistic backgrounds, she recognized a similar pattern: language loss occurs over generations widely and swiftly (Hsieh et al, 2020;Tse, 2001a) and said, "Their families just speak English. They are the third generation to live here.…”

“…Our limitations illuminate the need for future research that incorporates the voices and experiences of Korean American children and youth from varying backgrounds, particularly youth from linguistically minoritized communities (Tse, 2001a). It is also important to note that youth from non‐fluent HL households or mixed‐heritage families (Hsieh et al, 2020) are understudied, yet their perspectives, stories, and experiences with HL learning could offer important insights about multi‐layered transnational connections and could contribute to linguistically and culturally sustaining HL curriculum and learning opportunities.…”

The Voices of Transnational MotherScholars of Emergent Bilinguals

“…For example, MotherScholars have contributed to expanding researchers’ and teachers’ understanding of immigrant mothers’ and children's experiences across various subfields of education, including early childhood education (Kim et al, 2017; Kim et al, 2021; Meacham et al, 2021), special education (Kim, 2017), and social studies education (An, 2020). These MotherScholars’ narratives and lived experiences have served to counter the single narrative about Asian mothers while expanding the dialogs around immigrant children, families, and educators (Hsieh et al, 2020). In addition, when MotherScholars share their diverse stories and experiences, they “dismantle sharp binaries—namely, the sharp divide between the intellect and the maternal, the public and the private” (Lapayese, 2012, p.17).…”

Biography Writing Encourages Bilingual Adolescent’s Heritage Language Learning And Passing Down Of Family Stories

“…Translanguaging as a pedagogy, when adopted by the ELA teachers, can support what bilingual learners do with their heritage language and English and engages students in their academic tasks (García, 2014; García & Lin, 2017; García & Wei, 2014). It may help multilingual students become more aware of their heritage language and identity (Hsieh et al, 2020). Furthermore, the Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (Paris, 2012) encourages ELA teachers to shift away from monolingual norms and moves toward pluralistic views of students, teaching and learning, inviting students to explore who they are and the cultural elements they carry into the schools (Paris & Alim, 2017).…”