1
Heritage Languages Among South Asian Americans
Bryn Mawr College Spring 2014 Karuna Doraiswamy
Abstract*
This thesis explores second generation South Asian Americans' relationships with their heritage
languages; specifically, the ways in which these relationships might challenge current convention regarding the categorization of heritage and non-heritage learners along a linear spectrum. This thesis also examines the extent to which the decision to (re)leam one's heritage language might
be considered a necessary step to earning cultural legitimacy in the diasporic community, a
symbolic reclamation of one's history, or even a performative act intended to better match
oneself to the dominant perception of what it means to be South Asian.
1 Introduction
This section explains basic issues regarding heritage languages in general, including
current definitional debates, research on childhood interaction with heritage languages, and the
second generation's attitude toward their ancestral language and culture.
1.1 Defining heritage language learners
English has long been the dominant language spoken in the United States, to the
detriment of many indigenous and immigrant language communities. As such, there has been a
*I would like to thank my advisor, Nathan Sanders, for his patience and assistance during this process. I also must acknowledge my parents, whose encouragement led me to pursue this topic for my thesis, as well as the Linguistics Hour at Bryn Mawr and the Panda Cams at the San Diego, National, and Atlanta zoos for keeping me grounded throughout the experience. 2 recent increase in concern about maintaining the diversity of languages spoken among American
immigrant populations. While there are diplomatic and business advantages to such multilingualism, retaining knowledge of the home language is also thought to promote minority
individuals' psychological well-being and overall ease the process of adjusting to life away from the home country (Brecht and Ingold 1998, Skutnabb-Kangas 1999). Still, the brunt of the actual
effort to foster multilingualism has been left to individual families, despite the known fact that
parental efforts at maintenance alone are not enough to prevent an eventual shift to English (Lee
2005).
The current dearth of concrete, institutionalized methods to encourage maintenance of the home languages is troubling, especially given the speed with which language shift happens. For
immigrants around the world, it is common for languages from the country of origin to decrease
in use or be lost entirely by the second or third generation (Lee 2005). These languages are often referred to as the heritage languages of the younger generations, who are less likely to speak them. Unfortunately, much ofthe research on language in diasporic communities has historically focused on either the immigrant generation itself or the speech community as a whole; research centered specifically on second and later generations, especially heritage
language learners with more complicated relationships to the ancestral language and culture, has
only recently started gaining popularity.
The existing research on heritage languages has remained primarily within the area of
language pedagogy, prioritizing the perspective ofthe language teacher. Such research is
becoming increasingly common both for less commonly taught languages where heritage
language learners have a stronger presence in the classroom, and for languages like Spanish, where heritage language learners are starting to become a stronger presence among mostly 3 foreign language learners (Lee 2005). Because of this pedagogical focus, most of the current work on heritage languages has been centered on proficiency-based distinctions between heritage
language learners and foreign language learners, so as to easily place students into either a heritage or foreign language track. However, researchers also acknowledge that there are multiple factors at play that could complicate these categorizations, such as individual
ethnocultural and ethnolinguistic identity, individual attitudes toward the language, and the
parents' level of proficiency (Carreira 2004, Lee 2005, Reynolds, Howard, and Deak 2009).
As a result, there is no one established set of criteria determining whether someone is a heritage language learner; rather, the current approaches fall on a spectrum of inclusiveness,
from requiring near native-like skills to be considered a heritage learner, to simply needing to
personally identify in some way with the culture associated with the language (Valdes 2001,
Carreira 2004, Lee 2005, Reynolds et al. 2009, Van Deusen-Scholl2003). Valdes, for example,
advocates for defining the heritage language learner as one "who speaks or at least understands the language, and who is to some degree bilingual in that language" (2001: 38); those who do not
meet these criteria would then be considered foreign language learners. Van Deusen-Scholl,
while in general agreement with Valdes, adds another category for "heritage motivated" learners,
or learners who have a close cultural connection to the language but do not have (and have never
had) the native-like speaking or listening ability that comes with regular usage in the home (Van
Deusen-Scholl2003). While this kind of categorization, currently the most common in academic
settings, may prove convenient and useful from a pedagogical perspective, it also runs the risk of
oversimplifying the diversity of second-generation learners as well as erasing the very identities that some self-identified heritage language learners seek to reclaim (Carreira 2004, Lee 2005). 4 As such, more attention is being directed to self-identified heritage language learners' motivations for seeking heritage language instruction.
From this perspective, definitions of heritage language learners tend to come in different levels, or tiers. Reynolds et al. (2009) distinguish between "narrow" (native-like proficiency) and "broad" (general cultural identification) heritage learners, while Carreira defines heritage language learners as those "whose linguistic needs differ from those of second language learners by virtue of having family background in the heritage language or culture" (2004: 1), delineating four categories of heritage learners according to specific identity and linguistic needs. Lee (2005), in her survey of college students' motivations for studying less commonly taught languages, ultimately found that both narrowly-defined heritage language learners and learners with a cultural connection but little proficiency in the language expressed the need for a classroom environment that not only provides linguistic input, but also serves as a forum for exploring identity-related issues. She suggests that the conception of non-heritage learners and heritage learners as opposite ends of a linear continuum (see Figure 1) does little to assist students in the middle of the two extremes.
HERITAGE LA GUAGE LEARNER CO TlNUUM
Classic NHLL Prototype Ia ic HLL Prototype ~ ------~ Learners from a different Learners can shift along the continuum Learners from the ethnic background that based on the following dynamic factors; ethnic background that bring no pnor knowl dg bring some prior of language and culture to • Degree of (filiation with ethnic, knowledge of the the learning experience cultural, and/or religious identlcy language and culture to • Level of proficiency the learning experience • Experience In coumry or whh cultu re
Note. NHLL = non-h rl tag language l rncr; JILL= heritage language Ieamer
(taken from Lee 2005) 5 In place of the linear model, Lee proposes a two-dimensional representation of heritage
status (see Figure 2), with the continuum oflinguistic proficiency forming the vertical axis, and a
continuum of sociopsychological need to identify with the culture as the horizontal axis. The
result is four quadrants, representing four general learner types based on the complexities of the relationship between learners and the language of study.
RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF HERITAGE AND NON-HERITAGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS OF LESS COMMONLY TAUGHT LANGUAGES
Linguistic Proficiency Hi•gh
D A
Sodopsychological ~ ------, ------..... Sociopsychological Need for Cuhuml : Need for Cuhuml Identification : ldentificalion Low C : B High I I I I I I I I I
Linguistic• Proficiency low
(taken from Lee 2005)
Quadrant A represents learners with both high linguistic proficiency and a high need to identify
with the culture in question -- those most likely to be considered heritage language learners
according to theories that stress proficiency. Quadrant B includes those learners who
proficiency-based definitions tend to neglect, namely those who have a strong need to identify
with the culture but lack proficiency in the language. Traditional foreign language learners, with
low proficiency and a low need to identify with the culture, make up quadrant C. Learners with
already high proficiency but a low need to identify with the culture (such as Pakistani students
learning Arabic) occupy quadrant D. The advantage ofthis system, according to Lee, is that any 6 student can be placed at any xy coordinate and track their progress over time, with respect to
both linguistic proficiency and individual cultural needs.
1.2 Issues in childhood interaction with the heritage language
Some researchers have started to examine finer-grained factors that can affect both
baseline heritage language proficiency and the learners' chance of success when attempting to re-learn the heritage language. In particular, there has been more insight into heritage language
acquisition among childhood overhearers, or those who were exposed to the heritage language with some frequency during childhood but rarely if ever spoke it themselves (Au et al. 2002, Au
et al. 2008, Knightly et al. 2003, Lee 2005, Oh et al. 2003, Reynolds et al. 2009).
Overall, research has found significant phonological production benefits among heritage
language learners who overheard the language as children, in that such learners are typically able to produce the language with a more native-like accent than foreign language learners. However, these learners were no different from foreign language learners in terms of morphosyntax; in this
domain, regularly speaking the language during childhood was the ultimate predictor of success,
even for those who had seemingly lost proficiency in the heritage language entirely and were now re-learning from the absolute beginner level.
For learners who do grow up regularly speaking the heritage language in the home,
learning the language in a formal setting can become quite complicated. A familiar example in the United States is the experience ofyoung English/Spanish bilinguals taking Spanish through the K-12 school system. While these students have extensive speaking and listening experience, they often have been schooled exclusively in English, meaning they have little to no reading or
writing skills in Spanish (Valdes 1997). Moreover, many speak highly stigmatized varieties of
Spanish, as opposed to the standardized version taught in American schools. The result is often 7 marginalization both in and out of the language classroom, complicating their relationship with the language itself.
1.3 Second generation attitudes toward the heritage language and culture
Given the improbability of socioeconomic mobility in the United States for those without
English proficiency, it is practically inevitable that second-generation immigrants will grow up
speaking at least some English. In fact, even when the heritage language is the only language
spoken in the home, it is typical for the second generation to strongly prefer English as a means
of expression by the time they graduate high school (Portes and Rumbaut 2001 ). However, while this language shift is quite predictable, it does not necessarily come with a similar
generational shift in ethnic self-identification. Unlike the language acquisition process, in which
children have little say, the process of ethnic self-identification requires the second generation to
decide how to define themselves with reference to the groups around them, including the majority group and, if present, others from the home country. The process is complex and
demanding, with conflicting pressures from family and peers to choose a specific allegiance to
either the host country or the home country.
For many ofthese children, the first reaction to this conflict is to distance themselves
from the factors that cause the conflict, including the heritage language and relatives who speak
it. In Portes and Rumbaut's (2001) analysis of the responses to the Children oflmmigrants
Longitudinal Study (CILS), this was especially true for members of comparatively small
immigrant communities (such as Haitian Americans or Southeast Asian Americans), where a very high percentage of youths reported feeling embarrassed by their parents. However, the
study also suggests that while second generation children often display very assimilatory
attitudes in early adolescence (choosing unhyphenated "American" identities over "ethnic" ones), 8 identification with one's ethnic group heightens with age. In other words, the shift in ethnic
identity does not parallel linguistic shift, but moves against it. Portes and Rumbaut propose that this attitudinal shift happens as the second generation gain greater awareness of the ethnoracial markers that consistently define them to the outside world. It is possible that this delayed
appreciation for one's ethnic community comes with regret for not participating in the
community more in childhood, especially through avenues like language. Perhaps this regret is
behind the large number of ethnic minority students who start taking steps to learn the heritage
language in college.
The interplay between heritage language competence and identity is particularly relevant to second-generation South Asian Americans, many of whom have very basic background in and
cultural connections to one or more languages other than English, but for various reasons may
fall short of the level of competence usually considered prerequisite for heritage status. South
Asians also present unique complications when we consider that over ten languages other than
English are represented in large numbers by South Asian Americans. This puts into perspective the popularity of Hindi as the language most young adults choose to learn as a heritage language
-- even those whose parents are not native speakers of Hindi, but come from other speech
communities in their home country (Gambhir 2001).
The increasing number of South Asian American learners in heritage language
classrooms, including those without ancestral ties to the language of study, poses challenging
questions surrounding the role of language in South Asian American identity. Many English
speaking South Asian young adults in the United States have parents who were already native or
fluent in English before immigration, creating an environment where maintaining the heritage
language would have to be a conscious choice on the part of the parents, and later (though less 9 critically) the child. Also common are children of speakers of minority languages with little
communicative use in the United States, or children whose parents are from two different speech
communities; in such cases, English tends to dominate the domestic sphere.
Given the already steep rate of language shift among immigrant groups in general,
children in the above situations are especially likely to grow up as monolingual English speakers.
As language plays a distinctly critical role in the establishment of political and personal identity
in South Asia (see section 2.2), these children might feel particularly disconnected from their
own histories, especially after the point in young adulthood when their ethnic self-identification
starts to move more toward the home country. This thesis aims to identify the role of language in the formation of identity in these individuals, who in the regular American perception are all monolithically South Asian. In the process, this thesis will also use the example of second
generation South Asian Americans to challenge the current proficiency-based definitions of heritage language learners.
In Section 2, I briefly explain some of the common themes surrounding migration and
diaspora, and give an overview of the major languages spoken in South Asia and the relationships between them. In this section, I also outline the history of South Asian migration to the United States, including current information on their educational and economic attainment.
Section 3 looks closely at Sridhar's (2008) research on heritage language and culture
maintenance among three South Asian communities in New York City, highlighting the ways in which the findings complicate our understanding of who is a heritage language learner and who
is not. Section 4 delves further into this ambiguity, mostly through Lee's (2005) study regarding
language students' self-identification as foreign or heritage learners. I adopt the learner's
perspective, exploring the ways in which self-identification reflects internal and external 10 pressures to speak the language well, and examining why Hindi in particular seems to be the
language most students of South Asian origin gravitate to. Finally, section 5 explores the
implications of the previous four sections' findings on our understanding of both heritage
languages and diasporic populations, as well as providing some suggestions for further research.
2 South Asians and migration
2.1 Background on immigration in general
Diasporic communities form under a number of circumstances, including but not limited to escape from hostile conditions or persecution, human trafficking, exile, conquest, professional
or educational goals, or a desire to improve one's standard ofliving. As such, migration and
diaspora take on very different meanings for different communities -- for example, the ancient
Greeks might have viewed diaspora through a frame of migration, colonization and conquest, while to Jews, Palestinians, and Armenians, diaspora evokes a "collective trauma, a banishment, where one dream[s] of home but live[s] in exile" (Cohen 1997: ix).
For South Asian Americans, the most well known period of migration has been the post-
1965 wave (see section 2.3), during which most of the current South Asian presence in the
United States has formed. Many of these immigrants were already highly educated in the home
country and moved to the United States to pursue educational or professional aspirations; these
immigrants and their sponsored relatives account for most of the post-1965 wave (Kachru et al.
2008). While most ofthis migration is due to the positive draw oflife in the United States
(rather than authoritative force or a pressing need to escape from the home country), the themes
of exile and banishment are still evident in the way the immigrant generation tends to idealize the home country in comparison to the host country, with emphasis on the idea of sacrificing home
for the sake of success. Even into second and later generations, then, it is common for these 11 diasporic communities to "retain collective memories of the homeland, continue to relate to the homeland, and[ ... ] even define themselves primarily with reference to it" (Kachru et al. 2008:
526).
2.2 Language in South Asia
South Asia is far from a linguistically homogeneous region. For most of its history, in
fact, South Asia's great number oflanguages and cultures has been considered one of its defining
features. Many of these languages were brought to the region via invasions, while others were
created through inevitable contact between mutually unintelligible languages or natural processes
of linguistic change (Kachru et al. 2008). Languages have also arisen to serve the distinct
purpose of providing political or religious identity; the most familiar example is the split between
Urdu for Muslims and Hindi for Hindus, even though they are essentially the same fundamental
language.
Unfortunately, the bulk of available demographic data relating to South Asian languages
begins from after 1947, when the present-day national borders were drawn. Moreover, most of this data deals specifically with India; resources describing Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other
South Asian countries are much less common, though still available in less detail. Because of this lack of research, this section will only outline the linguistic situation in Pakistan, Bangladesh,
and India, the countries that represent the vast majority of South Asian Americans; even then, the
section on India is far more detailed than the others.
The official languages ofPakistan are Urdu and English; while the majority ofthe
country is verbally proficient in at least one of these languages, very few speak them natively. In
fact, only about 8% of the population is native in Urdu, and English tends to be deliberately
learned for the purpose of upward mobility rather than acquired in childhood. In terms of 12 number of speakers, Pakistan has six major languages, all of which belong to the Indo-Iranian
branch of the Indo-European language family. Of these six, Punjabi has the most native speakers
(44% ofthe population), followed by Pashto (15%), Sindhi (14%), Siraiki (10%), Urdu (8%),
and Balochi (4%). There are also 58 minor languages spoken in different regions throughout the
country (Rahman 2005).
In addition to these languages, Arabic has a particularly strong presence in Pakistan,
serving as a marker of Islamic identity. Arabic is taught in mosques, schools, and madrassas,
and the majority of Pakistanis have received at least some training in the language, though few
are able to read and understand it. Persian is also spoken by a few, as well as taught as a literary
language (Rahman 2005).
Bengali is the only official language of Bangladesh, and is also overwhelmingly the main
language of the country, with around 75% of the population identifying as native speakers of
some variant ofthe language. The country speaks 38 total languages, of which the ten Eastern
Indic languages (including Bengali) tend to be better represented. The rest of the languages,
spoken by very small minorities, belong to the indigenous Tibeto-Burman, Austroasiatic, and
Dravidian families (Lewis et al. 2013).
India, as the largest South Asian country, is also home to extreme linguistic diversity.
While the country's official languages are Hindi and English, it is important to note that there is
no majority language in India-- as of2005, not a single language is spoken by more than even
40% of the population (Kachru et al. 2008). Hindi, with 40%, is the closest to a majority
language that the country has, but even then, regional variations in style and proficiency call the unifying power ofthe language into question. In fact, the 1991 census reported 114 distinct
languages in India, with 216 dialects, not counting those with fewer than 10,000 speakers 13 (Kachru et al. 2008). Much of this variety might be due to conscious attempts to preserve the
linguistic pluralism of the country -- state boundaries were intentionally drawn along linguistic
lines. This means that unlike the country as a whole, each state has a very strong majority
language and a number of linguistic minorities (Kachru et al. 2008).
While there is no single majority language in India, the vast majority of the languages
spoken (with approximately one billion speakers) are from the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo
European family, including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Urdu, Gujarati, and Punjabi. Dravidian
languages, with about 250 million speakers, are widely spoken in the southern states; some of the most commonly spoken include Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. In both families, the more powerful languages (the ones listed above) also tend to have more representation among the Western diaspora (Kachru et al. 2008).
In an effort to preserve the country's linguistic diversity while also maintaining
communicative efficacy, Indian education largely follows a three-language formula. The first
language a child studies must be their mother tongue or regional language. In Hindi-speaking
states, the second language may either be English or another modem Indian language; in non
Hindi -speaking states, the second language must be Hindi or English. The third language, in
both Hindi-speaking and non Hindi-speaking states, will be English or another modem Indian
language not studied as a second language (Kachru et al. 2008).
According to this system, all children across the country with access to an education
should, in theory, grow up speaking Hindi, English, or both, while regional mother tongues remain specific to members of certain ethnic or geographic communities. With this in mind, it is
little surprise that English is the most commonly used second language among educated Indians
(Kachru et al. 2008). In practice, however, this educational system starts to fall apart in poorer 14 and more rural areas, where many children either do not have the opportunity to go to school at
all or the little English that is taught is limited to words and phrases that have already been
incorporated into the regional vernacular (Khandelwal2002). Nonetheless, in an increasingly
globally-oriented India, English occupies a position of enormous power, and economic mobility
is increasingly tied to English proficiency (Kachru et al. 2008).
2.3 South Asian Americans
The rate of South Asian immigration to the United States, at least in large numbers, has historically been quite low. Records show one "Eastern Indian" admitted in 1820, with 716
others arriving between 1820 and 1900; some oftheir descendants currently live in Yuba City,
California. Between 1904 and 1920, a number ofPunjabi workers were sent to British Columbia,
Canada; eventually, about 1,500-2,000 ofthem migrated to Washington state to work on the railroads (Kachru et al. 2008). After that, restrictions on new immigration, such as the Asian
Exclusion Act of 1924, made it nearly impossible for South Asians to enter the country, until the
1965 Hart-Celler Act lifted regional quotas and began granting visas based on education level
and professional skill. The number of highly educated South Asian immigrants quickly rose, and
eventually their families were allowed to join them (Kachru et al. 2008).
Current numbers of South Asian Americans are difficult to estimate. Much of this
difficulty arises from the fact that the United States Census only identifies "Asian Indian" as a
specific category. South Asians of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or other heritage are all included in the "other Asian" category without mandatory further specification, although respondents are
given the option to write in their specific ethnicity (Kachru et al. 2008). Furthermore, South
Asians make up around 2% ofthe country's undocumented immigrants, making the size ofthe
community even more difficult to gauge (Hoefer et al. 2012). With this in mind, the current 15 estimate ofthe number of South Asians in the United States is anywhere from 3.5 to 4 million, with especially high concentrations in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Texas
(Kachru et al. 2008).
Because the majority of first-generation South Asian immigrants came to the United
States so recently, the number of third- or later-generation South Asian Americans is much lower than for other immigrant groups; it is more common to have been born to first-generation parents
in the United States or brought over during very early childhood, making the separation from the home country particularly salient during childhood and adolescence (Kachru et al. 2008).
Furthermore, with this largest wave occurring during the era of air travel, it has been feasible to make frequent trips back to the homeland to maintain family relationships and give the children a
sense of their ethnic and cultural history; this often highlights the contrast between the South
Asian and American sides of their identity, and results in the children feeling uncomfortably
aware of how they do not fit into widely accepted models of either South Asianness or
Americanness (Kachru et al. 2008; Purkayastha 2005).
While the immigrants admitted immediately after the 1965 act have been quite financially
successful overall due to their in-demand educational background and fluency in English,
arrivals since the mid-1970s, including sponsored relatives, have landed lower on the
socioeconomic ladder, generally running small businesses like convenience stores and
newspaper kiosks (Kachru et al. 2008). Still, once in the United States, South Asians across the
board are educationally very successful; as of 1990, Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis each had educational attainment rates at least 25% higher than the American-born average (Kachru et
al. 2008). 16 English is overwhelmingly the dominant language among South Asian Americans.
While Hindi/Urdu was the 14th most commonly spoken language in the United States in 1990,
over 91% of Hindi/Urdu speakers were proficient in English (Kachru et al. 2008). This is at least
partially attributable to the heterogeneity of South Asian Americans -- in major metropolises, one
can often find a Little India/Pakistan/Bangladesh with residents representing numerous unrelated
linguistic groups. In cases like these, reverting to Hindi or English is a simple matter of
communicative convenience.
However, this does not necessarily mean that native languages are completely abandoned
in favor ofEnglish. On the contrary, Hegde (1991) found that South Asians in New York had two distinct networks: intraethnic (within the same linguistic community) and the interethnic
(between different linguistic communities). Regional linguistic and cultural affiliations have become rallying points in more established communities -- while there are some pan-South
Asian community organizations centered on shared interests (like music or film), such
organizations are mostly based on linguistic alignments, creating opportunities to sustain
languages and traditions that might otherwise have been lost to the greater pan-identity (Kachru
et al. 2008).
3 South Asian American heritage language maintenance
In order to study language maintenance among Indians in New York, Sridhar (2008) gave a 55-
item questionnaire to 21 randomly selected Kannada speaking families, 21 Malayalam speaking
families, and 91 Gujarati speaking families between 1985 and 1989. The items on the
questionnaire included demographics, opportunities for use of the ethnic language(s), indicators
of rootedness in cultural traditions, parents' use oflanguage in different domains, children's
proficiency in the ethnic tongue, use of and attitude toward the ethnic language, parents' efforts 17 at language maintenance, and parents' attitudes toward the future of the ethnic tongue in the
United States. This data was supplemented by observation during interviews, in the home, at
community events, and in school and playground settings.
It is important to note that Sridhar's study was conducted in very established immigrant
communities in New York, where the subjects had the opportunity to converse with others in their regional language. As Sridhar (1988) herself acknowledges, these circumstances are not
representative of all South Asian Americans, especially those living in largely white, suburban
areas, nor do the three communities interviewed in her study reflect the full diversity ofNew
York's South Asian population. Nonetheless, looking at trends in these comparatively large,
organized communities can yield important insight as to the role language plays in South Asian
American households, specifically for the children.
General trends in Sridhar's results included massive support networks within the three
linguistic communities; a given family could identify anywhere from 12-34 other families in the
area who could be considered friends or relatives. Families usually attended social events along their respective linguistic lines, and local ethnically based organizations were very active,
implying ample opportunity for interaction in the ethnic tongue. Families in all three groups would also frequently entertain relatives and friends from India, including very extended family.
These visits further increased the opportunities for interaction in the mother tongue, especially if the visitors were elderly or did not speak English well. It was particularly common for the first
generation's parents to take care oftheir grandchildren during the day; in these situations, the
second generation had an even greater likelihood of exposure to the ethnic language.
Many families also traveled to India to visit their relatives during the holidays, affording the children exposure to their heritage language and culture. Some of these children would even 18 pick up enough of the local language to converse about daily life during these vacations, and
promptly lose it all after returning to the United States-- perhaps in the process gaining the
phonological and morphosyntactic knowledge needed to facilitate easier learning of the heritage
language later (see section 1.2).
An extremely low percentage of Kannada and Malayalam speakers reported using the native language exclusively in the home, although code mixing with English was common across
all three groups. Essentially, English was viewed as the principal language ofthe home domain,
in many cases to accommodate the children, but in some cases due to English having a greater
perceived value than the native language. For example, 80% ofMalayali parents felt that their
children "would be better off with English," while only 36% ofKannadiga and 19% ofGujarati
parents felt the same. Clearly, the parents in the study were aware of the subordinate status of the native language in the host country, although levels ofthis awareness were quite varied.
Parents also seemed to agree that complete maintenance of the heritage language would be
unfeasible for the children: 70% of Gujarati and 64% of Kannadiga parents did not expect their
children to ever be fluent in the heritage language, but expressed the hope that they would be
"aware of their roots, and make an effort to maintain the culture if not the language" (Sridhar
2008: 531).
The large discrepancy in attitudes between the Gujarati, Malayali and Kannadiga families
can possibly be explained in terms of the loyalty each language tends to elicit among its speakers.
In previous work, Sridhar (1993) explains that among Indian linguistic communities, Gujaratis tend to display some of the strongest linguistic loyalty (alongside Tamils and Bengalis), both in
India and across the African, European, and North American diasporas. Kannadigas generally
fall in the middle of the linguistic loyalty spectrum, accepting that Kannada is no longer 19 sufficient in all communicative settings, but still using it fairly exclusively among themselves.
Malayalis, according to Nair (2005: 63), adopt a more "pragmatic" outlook toward Malayalam,
often forsaking it for English should the latter prove more practical. In accordance with these theories, both Kannadiga and Gujarati parents in Sridhar's survey agreed that "it [the native
language] will be maintained by a small number of people." Malay ali parents, by contrast, felt
"it will disappear in the next generation" (2008: 531 ). While the Malayali parents expressed
significant discomfort with this prospect, they, along with the other parents, also indicated they
didn't mind heeding their children's requests for them to speak mostly in English.
It is possible that this willingness to default to English was tied to the knowledge that the
children were absorbing bits of the mother language through the media. South Asian media
available in the United States includes the most popular Bollywood movies, as well as films in regional languages, national and regional TV channels from the home country, and TV channels
aimed directly at the second generation. All of this media, especially the last example, features
frequent code mixing in English, with enough code mixed elements to keep the children's
attention and make their way into everyday speech (Sridhar 2008: 529). Sridhar speculates that the pervasiveness of the mother language in international media may eventually support the
simultaneous survival of both the minority and majority languages.
Overall, although English overwhelmingly dominated household life in the families
studied, the children were still being brought up bicultural, and were aware of the norms they had to observe around other Indians, suggesting "selective adaptation" or "accommodation without
assimilation (Sridhar 2008: 532). From her observations, Sridhar concludes that "the children of
Asian Indian immigrants may not be 'bilingual' as the term is often used, that is, with full 20 receptive and productive competence in all skills. Nevertheless, they are not completely monolingual either" (532).
4 The (South Asian) heritage language learner's perspective
The amount of research specifically focusing on South Asian American heritage language
learners is rather limited; the current literature on heritage learners in general is spread out over multiple diasporic speech communities. Still, there has been some research on college-aged
South Asian Americans who enroll in Hindi courses. While many of these learners consider themselves heritage language learners, Gambhir (2001) points out that their parents' native
languages are often completely unrelated to Hindi. The majority ofthese learners also would not reach the standards of proficiency required for heritage language learner status according to
currently dominant theory. This raises questions both of how best to define and categorize South
Asian heritage language learners, and the extent to which lack of proficiency in a heritage
language like Hindi can be considered a symbolic barrier to full participation in the heritage
culture.
Research looking at heritage language learners from other backgrounds, such as African
Americans learning Swahili or Y oruba, suggests that the feeling of a cultural connection to a
chosen, symbolic heritage language can often supersede actual ancestral ties in helping the
learners feel fulfilled and more in touch with their cultures and surrounding communities; in fact,
for such learners in Lee's (2005) study, one or two semesters was generally enough to satisfy whatever individual cultural need they felt. However, this might be due to many of these
learners' being numerous generations removed from the heritage country and culture, and thus
able to find peace in a more symbolic connection (Gambhir 2001, Lee 2005). For South Asians, 21 whose ties to the homeland tend to be quite immediate, simply taking a class in a "chosen" heritage language like Hindi might not bring about the same satisfaction.
To look into how issues of self-identification and motivation, rather than simply
proficiency, might influence real psychological and educational needs in the classroom, Lee
(2005) surveyed 530 undergraduate students enrolled in less commonly taught language classes,
including Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Russian, Hungarian, Polish, Arabic, Swahili, and
Y oruba. All of the language classes included students from ethnic groups associated with the
language of study, as well as students who were unambiguously foreign to the language of study.
65 ofthe students identified as first generation immigrants, 142 as 1.5 generation (born in the native country and brought to the United States during childhood), and 214 as second generation.
The participants were given a questionnaire, of which the key part was an item asking if they
self-identified as a heritage language learner, without being given a definition. Other relevant
items on the survey included current and childhood usage of the language with family and
friends, previous instruction in the language, self-assessed proficiency in speaking, reading,
listening, writing, and cultural knowledge, motivations for learning the language, goals and plans
for future study, degree of participation in traditions of the home culture, the meaning the
language holds to them, and whether or not they would have studied the language at the K-12
level if it had been offered.
In response to the item asking whether or not they would identify as heritage language
learners, 245 said they would, 239 said they would not, and 10 gave answers such as "both,"
"kind of," or "yes and no," indicating that they possessed characteristics of both categories.
When asked for a rationale, 130 mentioned identification (or lack thereof) with the associated
culture, 64 expressed the notion that "heritage language learner" is a label reserved for mother 22 tongue speakers born into the language, and 56 said proficiency in the language was the defining
characteristic of a heritage learner, suggesting that had a broader definition been explicitly given, the results might have been different. Further, students who expressed feeling pressure to
display native-like language skills were much more likely to identify themselves as non-heritage
learners -- Lee suggests that this could be a compensatory strategy to distance themselves from these expectations, which students felt they had failed. The answers to items about other heritage markers (such as ethnicity or parental use of the language) do point to the possibility of
a larger population of heritage learners than the self-identification question shows.
Self-identified heritage learners assessed their proficiency to be significantly higher than non-heritage language learners in all five language skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening,
and cultural knowledge), with speaking, listening, and cultural knowledge as areas of especially high proficiency. Overall, the pattern was that "in order to achieve status as a heritage language
learner, one needed to be perceived by others as having a certain level of proficiency in the
language that enabled them to act as a linguistic and cultural broker in class" (Lee 2005: 559).
Learners from the heritage background who did not meet this standard admitted to feeling
internal and external pressure to perform well, and ultimately feeling they had failed in that regard. These learners were also more likely to frame proficiency in the heritage language as a
gateway to full participation in their heritage culture and more complete identification with their
cultural histories.
Students of two particular languages, Hindi and Mandarin, tended to view the language
of study in terms of its "official" capacity as a lingua franca across the home country. Many
described themselves as heritage language learners of some other language, most often a dialect
or another language from the same culture, but stated that they still wanted to learn the official 23 language of their communities. As such, these students already had a degree of familiarity with the relevant culture, and possibly the writing system, and in that sense could not be considered true beginners.
This is especially true for Hindi; given the linguistic diversity of both South Asia and its
diaspora, it might be difficult to find others from the same regional community to share
experiences with. Lee suggests that "for many students, Hindi is learned because ... [it] offers a
symbolic umbrella that connects the speakers of the many different Indian languages in a united
front" (2005: 560). This is consistent with one of the patterns in Sridhar's study oflndian
American families in New York: the younger generation did not identify with their respective
language groups, but as Indian American, perhaps moving Hindi more squarely into the position
of the unifying language of the diaspora. However, the students in Lee's study still felt they
lacked the linguistic competence to be perceived as heritage language learners, which Lee says reflects the "mixed feelings of many individuals who yearn to identify with the culture from the
perspective of a heritage language learner, but yet lack the proficiency to be identified with the heritage language learners completely" (2005: 561 ).
For many South Asian immigrants, the bonds formed over cultural products brought
overseas foster an ethnic and linguistic pan-South Asianness that can make linguistic identity
simultaneously easier and even more difficult for their children to navigate, resulting in learners
like those in Lee's study learning Hindi as a way to perform South Asianness. In particular,
Bollywood has become a symbol of South Asia abroad, "consciously [positioning] itself against the hegemony of Hollywood" (Desai 2006: 115). Desai notes a trend toward Bollywood films that directly target diasporic audiences, presenting a nostalgic, static portrait of India as the same
familiar, traditional homeland the first generation left behind (her examples include Pardes, Kat 24 Ho Na Ho, and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, among others). Such essentializing narratives
create a binary between the authentic, Hindi-speaking Indian and the vapid, westernized,
English-monolingual child of the diaspora; it is the ability to subvert these two extremes, to be
away from India without losing one's Indianness, that Desai argues is idealized in popular
diasporic media and subsequently projected onto all South Asian Americans, regardless of actual
country or language of origin, by both the majority culture and the nostalgic immigrant
community itself.
Badruddoja further elaborates that second generation youth are "eager participants in
conservative and hegemonic politics of cultural authenticity .... [A] 'good' Indian American is a
person who watches and enjoys Hindi films, demonstrates some fluency in an Indian language,
socializes exclusively with other Indian Americans, and embraces a Hindu identity" (2007: 42).
This suggests that Lee's interpretation of Hindi as a "symbolic umbrella" under which South
Asian Americans from disparate backgrounds can form a defined in-group has at least some
basis in lived experience. While Badruddoja does not explicitly mention Hindi proficiency as requisite for cultural authenticity, the centrality of Hindi media in the lives of the second
generation makes learning Hindi an appealing choice for those who wish to form social
connections around a common idea of South Asianness.
5 Conclusion
The complicated relationships South Asian Americans have with their heritage languages highlight the need to look more closely at heritage language learners from immigrant groups that
comprise many disparate linguistic communities. In particular, these learners challenge the
assumption that a heritage language must be a language spoken frequently at home, or even by the learner's particular ethnic group. It is clear that overall, South Asian American identity does 25 not work this way. While second generation children grow up with some awareness of their
specific ethnic heritage, common experiences of racialization and stereotyping in the United
States lead them to identify less with categorizations like "Tamil" or "Marathi," and more with
broader categories like "South Asian," "brown," or, increasingly, "Desi," a Sanskrit-derived
word referring to the people and cultures of South Asia (Purkayastha 2005). Furthermore, the
considerable role that cultural products like Bollywood movies play in constructing the popular understanding of South Asianness in the United States leads to specific performances of ethnicity
among younger generations, pushing Hindi into the symbolic position of "common heritage
language."
It would be intriguing to look at the specific South Asian linguistic groups represented in
Hindi language classrooms, to gauge whether or not the level of linguistic loyalty of one's
community can affect one's desire to participate in the constructed pan-South Asian identity. Of the children in Sridhar's (2008) study, would we expect more Malayali than Gujarati children to
eventually seek out Hindi instruction, due to the Malayali parents' pragmatic outlook toward the
actual heritage language? Conversely, might that outlook influence the children to feel less
concerned with knowing a heritage language at all? Would those Gujarati children who did not
grow up fluent in Gujarati still feel some sort of linguistic connection to their heritage because of the intense language loyalty within the community, or would not being able to speak the
language ultimately alienate them? If the latter is true, would they too tum to Hindi to reconstruct the linguistic part of their ethnic identity, or would they feel pressured to learn
Gujarati? These are just a few ofthe possible directions future study could explore; ultimately, more research is necessary for a true examination of the way the second generation
conceptualizes their relationships to their heritage languages. However, the work presented here 26 is enough to suggest that a more nuanced approach to classifying and studying heritage language
learners is essential to furthering our understanding of language among immigrant groups.
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