Heritage Language Development: Preserving a Mythic Past or Envisioning the Future of Canadian Identity?

“It’s My Language, My Culture, and it’s Personal!” Migrant Mothers’ Experience of Language Use and Identity Change in Their Relationship With Their Children: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

“…Extensive evidence indicates that greater use of, and self-confidence in, a language is concurrent with a strong identification with that linguistic group (Noels & Clément, 1996; Yip, 2005). It is also widely evidenced that heritage language transfer supports children’s identifications with their parents’ heritage culture (Guardado, 2010; Mu, 2015; Noro, 2009). The present study findings suggest that changes in parents’ identifications to the host culture are also related to their experience of language use with their children.…”

Adult Education Through a Cosmopolitanism Lens: A Review of the Research Literature

“…They defined cosmopolitanism as a personal perspective that entails ethical and philosophical orientations to include worldviews, dispositions, or identity (Bakkabulindi & Ssempebwa, 2011; Bilecen, 2013; Coryell, Spencer, & Sehin, 2014; Guardado, 2010; McNiff, 2013; Williams, 2013). Characteristics of cosmopolitanism include an individual’s openness (Froese, Jommersbach, & Klautzsch, 2013; Schein, 2008), commitment to multicultural sensitivity (Anderson, 2011; Cloete, Dinesh, Hazou, & Matchett, 2015; Guardado, 2010; Starkey, 2007; Szelényi & Rhoads, 2013), awareness of difference (Bamber, 2015; Sidhu & Dalla’Alba, 2012), development of cultural competence (Nilep, 2009; Ye & Kelly, 2011), adaptability (Coryell et al, 2014; Guardado, 2010), utilization of intellectual devices (Cloete et al, 2015; Sobré, 2009), and employment of appropriate discourse tools (Amadasi & Holliday, 2017) These attributes were suggested as helping individuals interact sensitively and effectively across different cultures, linguistic settings, and political economies. Others posited that cosmopolitanism articulates a sense of belonging in multiple communities (Gu & Schweisfurth, 2015; Khandekar, 2010), while Saito (2017) described cosmopolitanism as imagining a situation where world citizens belong to one community (through the common language of English).…”

Transnational Hispanic Identity and Heritage Language Learning: A Canadian Perspective

“…One of the identity spaces opened by Canadian multiculturalism is the additional view of the heritage language not as a holdover from the past, but as an element in a multilingual and cosmopolitan self in which individuals position themselves as embodiments of that new multicultural Canadian identity. These are the conclusions of a study on the language ideology and preservation practices of three Hispanic families in Vancouver (Guardado 2010). Of special interest in this research is the notion of "third culture kids," which claims that individuals growing up in two or more cultural groups develop an identity which is not just a mixture of them, but a composite greater than the sum of its parts.…”

“…As a result, approaches to pan-Hispanic identity which promote US-centric notions of success (the "American dream" stories in LLQH) will be far less relevant for Canadian SHL students. On the other hand, incorporating Hispanic identity into the ideal of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism should be much more fruitful, as seen in the practices of the families studied by Guardado (2010). Indeed, the hybrid nature and wide diversity of Hispanic identity, as embodied in the notion of mestizaje (Tammelleo 2011, p. 537) should be able to provide a good set of opportunities for each individual student to articulate their own form of belonging in various interrelated areas of identity (pan-ethnic Hispanic/Latino, community of origin, race, Canadianness, second-generation immigrant, etc.).…”