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Kalamazoo Revisited: Heritage Language Maintenance Among Latvians in North America California State University, San Bernardino CSUSB ScholarWorks Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations Office of aduateGr Studies 6-2014 KALAMAZOO REVISITED: HERITAGE LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE AMONG LATVIANS IN NORTH AMERICA Margaret J. Stepe California State University - San Bernardino Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd Part of the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Stepe, Margaret J., "KALAMAZOO REVISITED: HERITAGE LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE AMONG LATVIANS IN NORTH AMERICA" (2014). Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations. 82. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/82 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Office of aduateGr Studies at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. KALAMAZOO REVISITED: HERITAGE LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE AMONG LATVIANS IN NORTH AMERICA A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, San Bernardino In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English Composition: Applied Linguistics and Teaching English as a Second Language by Margaret Joy Stepe June 2014 KALAMAZOO REVISITED: HERITAGE LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE AMONG LATVIANS IN NORTH AMERICA A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, San Bernardino by Margaret Joy Stepe June 2014 Approved by: Caroline Vickers, Committee Chair, Applied Linguistics Parastou Feizzaringhalam, Committee Member © 2014 Margaret Joy Stepe ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to investigate the entwined roles of schooling, family support and investment, and community contact in Heritage Language Learning (HLL), Heritage Language Maintenance (HLM) and identity formation among two groups of North American Latvians. One is made up of 49 teenagers at Gaŗezers language camp in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The other comprises 25 parents, other adult Latvian speakers and camp staff members. I explore differences and similarities among them by age, gender and self-stated national identity and language proficiency. Primary data consist of some 70 questionnaires completed by youths and adults and six 30- to 90-minute interviews conducted and transcribed by me. Six more were conducted via e- mail. Based on aggregate analysis of multiple-choice and short-answer questions, supplemented by participants’ individual responses to longer-form survey questions and to my questions during interviews, findings demonstrate a connection between self-stated national identity (Latvian, Latvian-American or Latvian-Canadian, or American or Latvian) and self-assessment of Latvian language proficiency among the youths. Among the adults, men were more likely to identify simply as Latvian than were women, and adults of both genders who identified as Latvian averaged slightly lower in self-assessment of proficiency, even though most of them grew up speaking Latvian at home. Additionally, my research shows a community proud of its HLM accomplishments alongside those of displaced peoples from other nations—a community now at home in North iii America, although 60 years ago members were determined to return to Latvia. Keywords: L2, Latvian heritage language revitalization, third space, lingua franca, language immersion, heritage language maintenance. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to the staff, parents, and campers at Latvian Gaŗezers Camp, summer 2011, for their hospitality and enthusiastic willingness to participate in my research. I also appreciate countless other members of the North American Latvian community who have encouraged me and added to my understanding. I thank California State University, San Bernardino, professors Dr. Caroline Vickers and Dr. Parastou Feizzaringhalam, who guided my paper and shared their expertise in performing and presenting research. I appreciate Dr. Mary Boland, also of CSUSB, in whose class, English 609, “Perspectives on Research,” the idea for this project sprang suddenly into existence. Without her enthusiasm and encouragement, I might not have taken my notion—to write about North American Latvians’ heritage language maintenance— to the next phase. I am deeply grateful to my mother, Dr. Janice Kollitz, who has modeled courage and diligence throughout her life. As her daughter, I never questioned that a woman should pursue her life’s desires at any age. And I thank the rest of my family: my husband Uldis, post-World War II Latvian immigrant and lifetime enthusiast and teacher of his culture and language; our three grown children— Māra, Brita, and Āris—North American-born speakers of Latvian; and my two brothers, Richard and John. I appreciate all the ways my family inspires me. One last, but never least, acknowledgement goes to my dear friend, co- conspirator, cheerleader, and occasional editor, Laurie Williams. v DEDICATION This paper is for my late parents-in-law, Leo F.A. Stepe and Brigita Ilona Rozitis Stepe. They were never far from my thoughts during this project. Ar mīlestību, cieņu un apbrīnu maniem mīļajiem vīra vecākiem. Outdoors in early-morning Michigan mist, nearly rain, I watch a few dozen teens trudge up a grassy hill, around and around to the top, where they muscle up two flags by rope; the flag of the United States, hoisted high, sways lightly just above the maroon and white stripes that signify Latvia, their faraway symbolic homeland, the place their grandparents left in anguish and in hope, the distant dream that was never again to be their physical home. I stand among these people. Taller than I, fairer than I. A different people, a different language, a group to which I do not belong but solemnly appreciate at this moment. I sense their longing and sorrow, gratitude for their adopted homeland and reverence for their forebears. Some of those grandparents stand near me now, people whose homes and land were taken from them, and who started over in a new place, leaving behind family they would never see again. The teens clasp hands as they lift their voices, their faces so earnest. Daugav' Abas Malas: the two sides of the river—or both shores—are not divided; the guardian will decide. They invoke God to protect their land at home, to protect them. Looking around, I discreetly survey the welling tears of women and men, vi older and younger, and become conscious of a lump in my own throat—though I cannot personally connect these sentiments with anything in my life experience. (Personal reflection, M.J.S.) vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................ iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................. v DEDICATION .............................................................................................. vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................................ 1 Historical Context ............................................................................. 3 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................... 11 Other Heritage Language Groups .................................................... 12 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY Background ..................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS Participant Identity and Affective Factors by Group........................... 37 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION ................................................................. 80 APPENDIX A: TABLES .............................................................................. 83 APPENDIX B: INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD APPROVAL .................. 95 APPENDIX C: LETTER FROM CAMP DIRECTOR .................................... 97 APPENDIX D: CONSENT FORMS ............................................................. 99 APPENDIX E: QUESTIONNAIRE ............................................................... 104 APPENDIX F: INTERVIEW ......................................................................... 114 APPENDIX G: CAMP FLYER ...................................................................... 117 REFERENCES ........................................................................................... 119 viii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Immigration often leads to language shift and loss across succeeding generations. (Bradshaw 2006, Guardado 2011, Oriyama 2010, Sanders 1979, Stafecka 2009) and language is an important identifier of many aspects of human life, such as social status, education, and national and cultural membership (Guardado 2011, Messing 2007, Pavlenko 2005). Depending on population numbers and concentration, as well as social and group acceptance among native and other residents of the new region, immigrant groups will be more or less inclined to maintain their home language and pass it along to their descendants (Alba 2002, Bradshaw 2006, Dressler 2010, Guardado 2011, Moderessi 2001, Norton 2000, Octu 2011, Oriyama 2010, Park 2007, Pavlenko 2005, Schwartz 2008, Stafecka 2009, Woods 1999). Scholarship abounds around HLL and HLM (Messing 2007, Hornberger 2006, Alba 2002, Bradshaw 2006, Norton 2000, etc.) and cultural attitudes and identity issues (Messing 2007, Hornberger 2006, Pavlenko 2005), but there is a gap when it comes to heritage language maintenance within displaced communities. The dearth of HLL scholarship is especially striking in the North American Latvian community; this group strongly valorizes
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