Junior Emily Hsieh, a second-generation Chinese American, mirrors the experience of many immigrants’ children when she recalls her childhood memories of trying to maintain loyalty to both her parents’ culture and the culture she deems her own.
“[Striking the balance was] very difficult initially, I still remember,” Hsieh said. “When I was younger, I used to go over to my American friends’ houses and let them ‘Americanize’ me. But at the same time I used to feel ashamed that I could not interact with my family as well as I would have liked.”
The process, however, was not an easy one. Hsieh also had to endure several years of attending Chinese heritage schools—schools established and run by parents in communities across the nation to teach their children about Chinese culture and language—which she did not enjoy. It was a while before she personally embraced both American and Chinese culture as her own.
The Asian Pacific Studies Institute’s outreach workshop, which took place at Duke during fall break, aims to address this conflict faced by young children of immigrant parents growing up in America and provide resources for heritage school teachers.
Spearheaded by Duke’s Chinese language faculty and funded by a Freeman grant and a Title IV grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the outreach workshop brought to attention the challenges and concerns involved with teaching language and culture to students of diverse backgrounds.
The specific focus of the event, which drew 85 individuals from the Triangle area, was on first- and second-generation Chinese Americans and adopted Chinese children growing up in a foreign culture—those that the Duke faculty has termed “Chinese heritage language students.”
“As one of the major universities in the area, we felt the need to reach out to the community and bring them to us,” said Carolyn Lee, associate professor of the practice of Chinese. “The workshop is an effort to break traditional, historical, political boundaries [and provides] a medium to bridge the [cultural] gap. It raises awareness, causes people to respect differences and acknowledge similarities.” Proving her point, Taiwanese, Mainland Chinese, Vietnamese and other ethnic Chinese volunteer educators set aside their traditional differences to come together to discuss their experiences of teaching in heritage schools.
In order to better equip these teachers, many of whom are volunteers and often do not have a teaching background, Duke faculty compiled a portfolio of teaching materials and sources about language education opportunities available to students in the United States.
The event also addressed crucial educational elements such as heritage student profiles, curriculum, teaching materials and testing.
Putting the need for heritage schools into a broader national context was Wang Shuhan, the workshop’s main speaker, who is also education associate for the Delaware State Department of Education and specialist in World Languages and International Education.
In her speech, Wang stressed the need to advocate valuing what she termed bi-literacy—the ability to be literate in a language as well as able to understand the culture linked with it—not just for heritage school teachers, but the broader society.
“Culture and groups are not necessarily tied to a geographical location. Language and cultural education creates a community of purpose [and] helps build bridges between cultures,” Wang said. “After September the 11th, [the American government] realized the need for cross-cultural education. It became a social issue, important for national security and for the economy.”
She also identified these second- and third-generation children who had disappeared into the American melting pot as an untapped human resource.
Wang suggested that the path to recognizing this previously neglected sector of Americans comes from people from all walks of life being willing to open up to cultural educational experiences. “We advocate bi-literacy, but the most important thing is not the language, it’s bringing together a community of learners,” she said.
Participants of the workshop agreed that the day’s atmosphere was indeed one of a joining of learners.
“There was a real sense of excitement; [the participants] looked inspired,” said senior Kirk Donahoe, a workshop volunteer. “They got to talk to each other, gained new perspectives and had more motivation for their cause.”
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