The impact of acculturation on the primary language maintenance of second generation Chinese American immigrants.

Abstract

This study explores how the socialization experiences of second generation Chinese American immigrants support and encourage them to maintain their primary language, culture, and ethnic identity in their environment during the process of acculturation. This study examines why second generation Chinese American immigrants continue to strive for maintenance of their primary language. Particularly, the study investigates the factors that influence the primary language maintenance and bilingual development, how the immigrant parents contribute to the primary language maintenance in their living context, how second generation Chinese American immigrants adapt to the mainstream educational institutions and the larger society while maintaining their primary language, culture, and ethnic identity. A phenomenological research approach advocated by Polkinghorne (1989) and Moustakas (1994) was employed in this study to describe and interpret the meaning in the personal lived experiences of Chinese American participants who emigrated with their parents to the U.S. at young age. The phenomenological approach called for the words of the participants to provide a window into finding new meanings of bilingual and bicultural development and adjustment in the context of second generation Chinese American immigrants' lived experiences. The data were collected through one-one-one lengthy, in depth, semi-structured interviews with each selected participants to explore and describe the meaning for the individuals who had experienced the phenomenon. Among those participating were three second generation Chinese American immigrants and three immigrant parents. The findings from the interview revealed that when the participant immigrants started entering the mainstream educational systems, they did not realize that it was valuable to continue studying their primary language and retaining their cultural heritage because of the assimilative power from the mainstream educational institutions and the larger society. Since their childhood, their parents, particularly their mothers, took a responsibility to pass on and seek any means to maintain fluency in their primary language. Over time, they all now had great appreciation for their parents, the teachers from the mainstream schools, the teachers from the weekend Chinese schools, and the people from the community that taught, supported, and encouraged them to retain their bilingual and bicultural competences when they grew up in the host country. What emerged from the interviews were their positive attitudes toward the mainstream educational institutions and the larger society which provided them with opportunities (Ogbu, 1985, 1991). They strived to accommodate themselves to the demands from the mainstream educational systems and achieve the academic competences in the dominant society without assimilating and giving up their primary language, culture, and identification within the Chinese ethnic groups (Belden, 1997; Gibson, 1988). In addition, they consciously developed their own unique ethnic identities and considered they could function well in two cultures depending on the situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).