Family Language Practices and Identity: Focusing on Korean Heritage Language Learners

Family Language Practices and Identity: Focusing on Korean Heritage Language Learners

This week’s reading juxtaposed a fictional piece by An Na about a young Korean immigrant’s reconciliation of the conflicts of her family life and her public life. An Na, herself a daughter of Korean immigrants, creates a story for Young Ju based largely on her own. While the narrative is not autobiographical, An Na draws upon her own experiences, negotiations, and frustrations as a young girl of Korean heritage growing up in the United States.

Several themes course through the narrative. One, of course, is cultural assimilation. We see throughout the book that the characters are continuously having to make judgments regarding what facets of American life they will subscribe to and which ones they will eschew. They must also decide which Korean and family traditions they will maintain as part of their cultural heritage in their new home. For example, we witness the father asserting that “someday” the family will move from the rudimentary home they rent from Mr. Owner; home-ownership is often considered part of American culture (“the American dream”). Ironically, the family becomes able to purchase a home only after many years when the father determines he’s much more comfortable in Korea and returns there. It is then that the mother borrows money in order to purchase a home for herself and the two children.

Another theme throughout the text is maintenance of the Korean culture, especially in such areas as gender and economics. The father and mother both detest borrowing money or anything else they will have to pay back or be beholden for. This idea runs counter to a common understanding in America that everyone borrows (from friends, from family, from the bank, from credit card companies). A larger theme than economics, however, is the reiteration of traditional gender roles in Korea versus those in the United States. Young Ju is constantly reminded by the Korean males in her life of her place as a female, while her younger brother (evident in the scene at the home right after his birth) is expected to have a life full of opportunity and responsibility. Interestingly, the Korean females in the text seem to be resisting these roles (even the grandmother in Korea seems to be resisting traditional gender roles in favor of more progressive ones).

Language did not play as central a role in the text as what I expected; perhaps this is because this is a work of fiction (?). On the other hand, even if the text were autobiographical, we may not have read much about language. I’m not sure why this wasn’t a central theme of the text. The narrator mentions learning English when she first moved, and she mentions her mother speaking in different dialects/languages in the kitchen of the restaurant she works in. But in terms of a culture-language-identity relationship, An Na does not deal with the theme centrally.

Dr. Kang’s study fits with our reading of this text in that the participants are Korean-American parents attempting to maintain the Korean language as a heritage language for their American-born children. The reasons behind this (or the motivation) include maintaining a sense of Korean heritage (traditions), but Dr. Kang mentions also that economics definitely play a part. If the family determines that it is economically advantageous to return to Korea (or if there is an extended family need for them to return), then it is important that the children are fluent in the heritage language. Thus, Dr. Kang examines the “family language policy” of these families (she defines family language policy as “explicit and implicit planning in relation to acquisition of language skills in home settings, in contrast to those espoused by the state or other organizations,” Kang, 2012). Dr. Kang’s study examined how Korean-American families “employ language intervention strategies” to facilitate their children’s bilingual skills. While previous studies (Dr. Kang mentions Kasuya 1998 and Pan 1995) assert that families should exclusively utilize the heritage language among family members in home settings, Dr. Kang’s study exemplifies how families can use a variety of techniques (utilizing both the heritage and L2) to facilitate bilingualness (Kang 2012). Indeed, I found the quoted conversations in which the parent would code-switch between English and Korean (often using English to help define Korean vocabulary) interesting, as often L2 teaching techniques involve exclusive use of the target language.

Two questions I have for Dr. Kang include…

1) Does she have any plans to follow these same Korean-American families, creating a longer longitudinal study? I ask this question, because I’m interested in how these children will progress with learning/maintaining their Korean language. I am also interested in how these children will build upon/maintain their Korean language literacy as these children get older and are more immersed in American schools.

2) How common is “Saturday school” among Korean-American families. Dr. Kang’s paper noted that these sessions are far less effective than immersion (say, for several months over a summer). An Na does not include this in her fictitious piece, perhaps because the narrator’s family is not in an economic position to pursue such an activity. Is Saturday school a more recent development?

*One side-note of the novella from An Na. An Na included so many universal feelings and emotions. I felt myself relating to Young Ju as a little girl, as a teenager, and as a young adult preparing to leave for college. I love that An Na created a narrator who was relatable, even though we’re all of various backgrounds. This shows her reader that, despite any geographical variations or differences in upbringing/background, some things about people remain universal.