Why do so few children of Asian immigrants speak their parents’ language?
Of all my Asian friends who moved to Canada as a child, very few speak their Asian heritage tongue well. I seem to be one of the very few that can speak, read and write my parents’ tongue to an “acceptable” level.
By “acceptable”, of course I mean in the eyes of other Asian parents. Definitely not my own… *sigh*. I can never satisfy my Chinese parents.
The heritage language for children of Asian immigrants has been studied by a US group called “IVY GATE International”. In their survey, the group found that only 40% of Asian-Americans are eloquent in their parents’ native tongue. Eloquence was not defined in the study.
Only 40% of Asian-Americans are eloquent in their parents’ native tongue, according to this survey.
To compare this data, I ran a poll inside the Facebook group Subtle Asian Montreal, a Montreal group whose members have Asian heritage or are interested in Asian culture. After two days of polling, 123 people responded. Immigrant generation is defined by the place of birth.
Similar to the American survey, this Canadian Facebook poll shows that about half of Asian-Canadians speak their heritage language relatively well. Interestingly, most Asian-Canadians lose their heritage language as first generation immigrants.
What is speaking a language “relatively well” in these surveys?
From my experience, speaking relatively well or eloquence might mean the level of language that is enough to converse day-to-day things to someone’s parents. The Asians who are not eloquent enough would have to use a substitute language, usually English, in between sentences and expressions in their native tongue, in order to fill the communication gap. How wide this gap needs to be to lose eloquence is an open question.
How children of Asian immigrants lose their language(s) due to parenting
From many languages to one
Many Asian parents can speak many Asian languages and dialects themselves. Usually, the parents decide on a heritage lingua franca when moving to a new country. In my case, my parents would speak Mandarin to me instead of Cantonese and other regional dialects of Mandarin and Cantonese. So right off the bat, Asians lose all secondary heritage languages.
Stereotypical Asian parenting
Still, there is one heritage language left to the kids. How come this one does not pass on most of the time?
The answer is parenting, the stereotypical Asian parenting.
The typical helicopter-parenting is the stereotype that Asians parents are known for. It consists of constantly watching over a child’s activities, especially educational ones. This means enrolling a child in many extra-curricular activities, like a Saturday school class to learn the heritage language.
Then how come Asian kids still lose their language?
In addition to getting stereotypical Asian parenting at home, Asian kids also receive it as pupils at these Saturday schools. The question then becomes…
Why is stereotypical Asian schooling hurting the children’s ability to learn the heritage language?
The Asian classroom etiquette is different from the one in Canada or the USA. Emphasis is put on memorization and discipline. Memory is important in learning anything, but when it comes to language, especially Chinese, memorization is crucial. Children are expected to learn thousands of Chinese characters by heart to reach adult proficiency. In a setting like a Saturday school, children only have two hours per week to digest what it is taught in 5 days per week. Naturally, the course load is reduced to fit the time constraints.
However, Asian discipline expects students to excel despite the limitations. As such, most Chinese Saturday school do not dilute the material to fit the time frame in an acceptable manner. Children are still expected to do much more than what they are given to learn with. This yields enormous amount of stress and high expectations. Discipline also requires students to remain obedient even in the face of hardship. Asking a question in class is seen as a sign of disrespect to the teacher and makes you look stupid in front of others.
With all of this pressure to keep on, falling behind is consequently seen as a sign of shame that Asian teachers would not hesitate to exploit in public. Grades are all disclosed with the students’ names in front of classmates and parents, leading to social rejection for those who are struggling. I was unfortunate enough to be subjected to a public condemnation by my teacher in front of my class at age 12, because I screwed up my answers to a homework question and blamed the lack of guidance.
Stereotypical Asian parenting makes use of negative feedback much more than other parenting styles. Asian parents often feel necessary to shame an extra inch to drill in the dire situation of a failure, in hopes of shocking their children into never doing something again. Paradoxically, this goes against the memorization etiquette of an Asian education.
It is common that most Asian kids give up the Saturday language school before they finish the set years of Saturday curricula. During my times at Jiahua, a Chinese school located at Dawson college, Montreal QC, the class sizes of young children are much larger than the class sizes of the graduating teenage class. If the Saturday school system were to keep record of drop-out rates, it would be very high.
How the cultural environment makes children of Asian immigrants lose or keep their language
I have met some exceptionally talented friends who still speak, write and read their language, much better than me. When I congratulate them, they say their success comes from cultural products. None of them have congratulated my Chinese in return. Maybe my parents are right after all about my Mandarin! *sigh*
All my exposure to the Chinese language comes entirely from Saturday schools. I have never consumed any Chinese-language media besides a textbook. These exceptional friends, however, read fiction and watch content in Chinese. When I found out what content they enjoy, I was shocked to see how unrelated it was to my Canadian life. I didn’t know people would find interest in things that have no connection to the larger life in Montreal. I respect their Chinese escapism even though I have no interest in that at all.
So…what can be done? Or should anything be done?
Let’s answer the second question first.
As a Universal politician in Quebec, I do not believe in language legislation. As such, I find it perfectly acceptable and legitimate that some second-generation Asian immigrants lose their parents’ tongue. It is their choice to live their life after all. They decided to drop out of Saturday school and not to consume media in their heritage language. No one should be forced by the law to learn a language or to lose a language. We must respect their choice, for it is essentially freedom of speech.
Surely, there are people who’d like to maintain some linguistic diversity?
Yes! I am part of these people. I believe in having many ways to express the human condition. Language is a part of that. To nudge the situation in favor of linguistic diversity among second-generation Asian immigrants, we can try to address all the grievances I have put forward in this article while respecting individual freedom.
The establishment of a heritage lingua franca
This is a choice done by the parents that we must respect. We cannot force parents to speak to their kids in some language. Parents are the ones who decide how to talk to their children.
Stereotypical Asian parenting and schooling
Helicopter parenting and the Asian school etiquette are definitely things we can tackle. I propose parents meet with their Saturday school leaders to clearly outline what the curriculum is meant to deliver and how realistic the curriculum is. Saturday schools do not have a school board where parents can take part in like in the normal schooling system.
Moreover, Asian parents should stop berating their child for not meeting their same language standards as they have reached in their country of origin. This only discourages children and creates an unhealthy expectation for immigrant children who are already torn by an identity crisis. Instead, parents should be more supportive that their child is engaging with their heritage language. When learning a language, nothing is worse than a native speaker mocking your efforts. Of course, these are all non-law-binding suggestions. I will not codify this into legislation.
English is seen as cool because we don’t see native speakers mocking the various English accents around the world. Well…at least, there are fewer hecklers in English than in some other languages. :)
Cultural influence
I have never seen an Asian friend whose heritage language mastery is only because of school. They all had some language specific content to engage with in their hearts. To remedy this, we need content creators. This content must be as diverse as possible to capture the minds of as many people as possible. Only social media can provide this wide array of content. As part of my electoral platform, I will create a fund for any content creator in Quebec. As long as their content meets YouTube or Facebook guidelines, they may apply for a grant from the government. More on this proposal later.
Conclusion
Language loss is a natural phenomenon among children of Asian immigrants. For Asians kids, the blame is put on the stereotypical ways of Asian parenting and the social etiquette of an Asian education. For Asians adults, there is simply a justified lack of interest toward heritage languages beyond family. Very few media from the country of origin can win over the hearts of children of immigrants using their heritage, given how special their identity is. I have personally no interest in whatever is going on in Chinese pop culture.
I am Chinese-Canadian. And I want to explore what that means. This question cannot be answered by China. It can only be answered by people grounded in the same reality as I do. There is an appetite for artists to dive into this part of the human experience.
