Situation #1.4: My child’s English is not up to grade level yet. It seems that we can’t afford to deal with Chinese now.Reality: The approach of English learning for non-English speakers has been controversial systematically and politically ever since the birth of America. Bilingual and ESL (English as a Second Language) programs were established a few decades ago to help children, whose native language is not English, gain equal access to the American school curriculum. Sadly, even though many who have gone through this process have in some way learned English, many have also lost their own language. Somehow there is a belief that it is necessary and natural to do so in order to gain the dominant language. This is called the subtractive method.

In the last few decades or so, researchers have reported benefits of the additive method, that is, continuing learning academically and conceptually the native language while learning the dominant language. They have also found that the positive influences on their academic, linguistic and cognitive development maximize when literacy in both languages are developed more or less at the same rate and level. It may take longer in years for a child to be proficient in both English and Chinese, but if effective instruction of academic skills is given in Chinese, the child will be able to overlap that knowledge in English at a functional level eventually. Contrary to what one may think, this will not result in a lower level of academic performance in English. Instead, it will actually help him acquire English more proficiently. The truth is: it is a win-win situation when your child learns both languages simultaneously.

Situation #1.3: Our family members speak very little English at home. It is getting more difficult these days to communicate with my child now that he is only speaking English that he learns from school.Reality: Many immigrants are facing a familiar and common issue: their children are losing their native language. Studies show that losing a language can be devastating for family bondage. The fact that families cannot communicate with their children fully hinders the intimacy necessary to pass on beliefs, values, and identity to generations after. Children lose their native self as a result of assimilation into the mainstream society.There are children, and sometimes their family, who have come to believe that speaking Chinese is inferior to speaking English, an obvious thing in their view that obstructs them in gaining acceptance from the society at large, besides their dress and having a Chinese name. In school, they want to be included and recognized as Americans, not rejected as immigrants.It is common, especially in the Chinese culture, to believe that school provides success. Perhaps it is true that it may open doors in the career-related, thus monetary, sense. But what about success in life? That is, what about knowing who we are and where we come from? What about understanding how we connect to our significant others, and to each event that comes our way? What is our responsibility to ourselves, our family, and our community? Why are we Chinese? All these and more can only be best answered by our own family, not the school.

If one loses his language, he too will inevitably and unnoticeably lose a major part of his own identity because we develop our self-identity through our culture. Moreover, their eventual inadequacy of Chinese may make them feel inferior and unintelligent as a result, indirectly forcing them to adopt other cultural value as their own, placing a biased view toward their own ethnic group unexpectedly and unknowingly.

Many families think it is only part of the process of becoming American and do not address the issue until it is too late. Not all children can switch back to speaking Chinese as easily. The reality is, when a child is not actively using Chinese in everyday interactions, he cannot develop it any further and is extremely likely to either retain it at a level not in his age range, or lose it altogether as a result.

Language is not an object that can be tossed about like material possessions. One’s soul, mind, spirit and kinship to one another reside in the language. That is what would be lost if one loses his language.