Bilingual
Research Journal
Fall 2000 Volume
24 Number 4
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Editors' Introduction: Heritage language learning has a long tradition in the United States and its antecedent colonial history. Heritage language learning may be seen as part of a larger custom, what Kloss (1998; see Ivonne Heinze's review in this volume) called the American bilingual tradition, a minority tradition set against the backdrop of a more powerful tradition of domination by English monolingualism. The "heritage language" label has been used in reference to both immigrant languages and indigenous languages. For some, the positive aspect of this expression is the suggestion of connections to past traditions and the maintenance of ancestral languages. However, Baker and Jones (1998) caution that the association with ancient cultures and past traditions "may fail to give the impression of a modern international language that is of value in a technological society" (p. 509). For those who share this concern, "community language" may be preferable because "community-based education begins with people and their immediate reality. Above all, it allows them to become meaningfully involved in shaping their own futures through the school and other agencies in their community" (Corson, 1999, p. 10; cf. Horvath & Vaughan, 1991). For the purposes of this volume, heritage language will be treated as roughly synonymous with community language. We will leave temporal orientation to the readers' preferences. Deciding on what types of learners should be included under the heritage language label raises a number of issues related to identity, inclusion, and exclusion. Who can legitimately be considered a heritage language learner? Which is more important—affiliation with an ethnolinguistic group or one's language proficiency in the target heritage language? (Wiley, in press a) For pedagogical purposes a "heritage" speaker refers to "a student who is raised in a home where a non-English language is spoken by one who speaks or merely understands the heritage language, and who is to some degree bilingual in English and the heritage language" (Valdés, 2000, p. 1). From an educational policy perspective, promotion of heritage languages creates both challenges and possibilities. Historically, the impetus for the preservation and support for heritage languages was left to language minority communities themselves (Kloss, 1998). Facing the domination of English in the broader society, it is not surprising that linguistic assimilation into English has been accompanied by sweeping language loss. Typically, there has been a three generational shift to English (Veltman, 1983). Among immigrant language minorities the characteristic pattern has been that the first generation acquires some English while remaining strongest in the native tongue; the second generation usually becomes bilingual with more developed literacy skills in English because English is the language of instruction; and the third generation has a tendency to become English speaking with little or no capability in the language of the grandparents. However, in recent decades, the shift to English and concomitant heritage language loss appears to be happening at an ever more rapid pace (Wiley, in press b). This pattern is by no means limited to the United States. Linguistic assimilation into dominant languages accompanied by language loss, death, or even "genocide" (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000) is a global phenomenon. Against this undertow, the promotion of heritage and community languages offers some hope providing intergenerational continuity and "reversing language shift" (Fishman, 1991, 2001). This thematic volume of the Bilingual Research Journal owes its motivation to the first national Heritage Languages in America Conference held in Long Beach, California in 1999. The conference was one of the first major activities of the Heritage Language Initiative that was spearheaded by the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) (http://www.cal.org/heritage) and the National Foreign Language Center (NFLC) (http://www.nflc.org). Among the priorities of the initiative are to assist the education system in identifying and expanding heritage language resources in the United States and establishing a research agenda to better promote these ends. This issue of the Bilingual Research Journal samples a small number of the issues related to heritage language research and programmatic concerns. The choice to maintain or promote heritage languages is linked to notions of identity and self-determination. Historically, in the United States, the notion of self-determination for indigenous and immigrant groups has never had strong backing. The dominant society's aversion toward self-determination of minority peoples was expressed early in U.S. history, when in 1831, the U.S. Supreme Court reached the imaginative conclusion that native peoples were domestic foreigners who belonged to "domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert a title independent of their will . . . in a state of pupilage. Their relationship to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian" (Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 1831, 1990, p. 59). During World War I, heritage language maintenance among European immigrants was viewed as un-American. Similar sentiments were imposed on Asian immigrants in Hawaii and California and Spanish speakers inhabiting or immigrating to the Southwest. The first-ever federal funding for Title VII transitional bilingual programs, which were implemented in the late 1960s, demonstrated a slight innovation in the form of a policy of accommodation. However, since the late 1970s, critics of bilingual education have scorned federally funded programs because they allegedly support "affirmative ethnicity" (see Epstein, 1977). Against this grain of opposition, Michele Moses provides a philosophical defense of heritage language learning based on the principle of self-determination. According to a popular myth, language minorities in the past willingly surrendered their languages as part of a rite-of-passage to the dominant language and culture. Patricia MacGregor-Mendoza provides evidence to the contrary through her historical discussion of linguistic repression in southwestern schools. The value of promoting heritage languages is often argued from a "language-as-resource" perspective. Grace Cho demonstrates the personal and societal benefits that come to those Korean Americans who master their heritage language in addition to English. The Hawaiian language was nearly wiped out as a result of the political and economic dominance of English in Hawaii. Lois A. Yamauchi, Andrea K. Ceppi, and Jo-Anne Lau-Smith provide an in-depth discussion of a Hawaiian language medium K-12 program and its impact on language revival efforts and the identities of its teachers as members of the Hawaiian community. Heritage language speakers from the United States often confront discrepancies between their own heritage variety of language and those spoken outside the United States. Florence Riegelhaupt and Roberto Luis Carrasco provide a case in point through their analysis of Mexican host family reactions to bilingual Chicana teacher from Arizona. Heritage language speakers are sometimes ridiculed for their lack of proficiency in prestige/literate-standardized varieties of language. Maria Carreira tackles the problem of such derisive social attitudes concerning U.S. varieties of Spanish, which are often manifested most prominently in classrooms of Spanish for native speakers. One community that is often ignored in discussions of heritage language is the Deaf community. Susan Burch explores issues of sociocultural identity among members of this community who, unlike the majority of other heritage language learners, are not immersed in the heritage language community from birth. Throughout much of U.S. history, efforts to promote heritage languages have been carried out though community-based after-school or weekend programs. These efforts came under attack during the wave of Americanization and xenophobia, which obsessed the country during and immediately following World War I. In one of the few constitutional tests of language rights, Farrington v. Tokushige (1927), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right to promote heritage language instruction through private and community-based efforts. In this volume, Setsue Shibata offers a contemporary case study in community-based efforts to establish a Saturday Japanese school. This collection of articles speaks to some of the research issues related to renewing heritage language instruction in the United States, but it falls short of dealing with a broader array of issues that need to be addressed. To point to that much longer list, this volume ends with the final report of the Heritage Language Research Priorities Conference, which was held at the University of California at Los Angeles in September of 2000. It provides a list of general heritage language areas in need of additional research as well as a focus on seven specific areas that include: the heritage language speaker, family, and community, as well as heritage language policies, programs, and assessment issues. It is our hope that this thematic issue of the Bilingual Research Journal will contribute to and extend the effort of the National Heritage Language Initiative.
Terrence G. Wiley Guadalupe Valdés May 2001
References Baker, C., & Jones, S. P. (1998). Encyclopedia of bilingual education and bilingualism. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831, 1990). In F. P. Prucha (Ed.), Documents of United States Indian policy (2nd ed., p. 59). Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press. Corson, D. (1999). Community-based education for indigenous cultures. In S. May (Ed.), Indigenous community-based education (pp. 8-19). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Epstein, N. (1977). Language, ethnicity, and the school: Policy alternatives for bilingual-bicultural education. Washington, DC: Institute for Educational Leadership, George Washington University. Farrington v. Tokushige, 273 U.S. 2 & 4; 47 S. Ct. 406; 1927 U.S. Lexis 699; 71 L. Ed. 646. Fishman, J. A. (1991). Reversing language shift. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Fishman, J. A. (2001). Can threatened languages be saved? Reversing language shift, revisited: A 21st century perspective. Horvath, B. M., & Vaughan, P. (1991). Community languages: A handbook. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Kloss, H. (1998). The American bilingual tradition (2nd ed.). Washington, DC and McHenry, IL: The Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000). Linguistic genocide in education or worldwide diversity and human rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Valdés, G. (2000). Introduction. Spanish for native speakers, Volume 1. AATSP Professional Development Series Handbook for Teachers K-16. New York, NY: Harcourt College Publishers. Veltman, F. (1983). Language shift in the United States. Berlin: Mouton. Wiley, T. G. (in press a). Thoughts on a definition of heritage languages. In J. Peyton (Ed.), Heritage languages in America: Blueprint for the future. Washington, DC & McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems. Wiley, T. G. (in press b). Policy formation and implementation. In J. Peyton (Ed.), Heritage languages in America: Blueprint for the future. Washington, DC & McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems.
Acknowledgements The editors wish to express their sincerest appreciation for the excellent assistance that Wayne Wright of Arizona State University provided in preparing this volume.
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