108 Heritage Language Journal, 10(1) https://doi.org/10.46538/hlj.10.1.6 Summer, 2013 Lithuanian Saturday Schools in Chicago: Student Proficiency, Generational Shift, and Community Involvement Aurelija Tamošiūnaitė Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania Abstract This article explores the Lithuanian heritage speakers’ community in the United States. It aims to look at the correlations between generation or age of arrival in the United States, and self- reported language proficiency. Usage of Internet materials in Lithuanian and involvement in Lithuanian activities are also addressed. The case study contrasts findings from two different sources: a survey conducted in two Chicago-area Lithuanian Saturday schools in 2007 and an Internet Survey administered to Lithuanian-American middle, high school, and college students via Survey Monkey in 2008. The empirical data indicate that Lithuanian heritage speakers form a diverse linguistic community having different linguistic competences in the heritage language. Consistent with the findings of other heritage languages (Carreira & Kagan, 2011), Lithuanian heritage speakers exhibit high oral proficiency but lack writing and reading skills. The correlation between the age of arrival and linguistic competence in Lithuanian was also observed: the younger the age of arrival in the United States, the weaker competence in Lithuanian was reported. Findings on Lithuanian heritage speakers’ involvement in the heritage community indicate that most of the respondents are highly involved in community activities. All of the third-generation (G3) respondents reported their involvement in Lithuanian Saturday schools, which indicates that Lithuanian education is still actively promoted among G3 heritage speakers. Introduction The U.S. Census of 2000 counted 38,295 Lithuanian speakers living in the United States. However, the American Community Survey (2006-2008) indicates an increase to 41,622, likely related to a recent influx of new immigrants from Lithuania. In the 2006-2008 estimates, 90 percent of Lithuanian speakers in the United States declared they spoke English “very well” or “well,” and only ten percent “not well” or “not at all.” Given that proficiency in English typically suggests little or no knowledge of the heritage language (Potowski & Carreira, 2010; Rumbaut, 2004, among others), the data point to a language shift from Lithuanian to English among Lithuanian speakers1 in the United States. Lithuanian heritage speakers form a comparatively small heritage language community, lacking economic power and visibility in the United States in comparison to other larger heritage language communities such as Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Polish, and Russian, among many others. In opposition to Spanish, Chinese, Arabic or the more frequently spoken Slavic languages (Russian or Polish), Lithuanian is currently taught at two universities in the United States.2 There are no full-time K-12 programs created for Lithuanian heritage speakers, nor are there any dual- immersion programs. Therefore, due to the lack of instructional opportunities, most Lithuanian heritage speakers do not have opportunities to achieve higher linguistic proficiency (cf. Kagan, Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 04:22:44PM via free access 109 Heritage Language Journal, 10(1) https://doi.org/10.46538/hlj.10.1.6 Summer, 2013 2005). Thus, maintenance of Lithuanian in the United States, similar to the maintenance of other less commonly taught heritage languages (Peyton, Ranard, & McGinnis, 2001; Gambhir, 2001; Wiley, 2001), strongly depends on the efforts of the Lithuanian American community, including Saturday schools and families. In order to shed more light on Lithuanian in the United States, this article explores the Lithuanian heritage learner community via two surveys. First, I offer short descriptions of the Lithuanian language and the basic patterns of Lithuanian immigration, and then provide an overview of the research on Lithuanian community schools in the United States. The Lithuanian Language Lithuanian is the official language of the Republic of Lithuania, protected by the Law of the Official Language adopted by the Seimas [Parliament] on January 31, 1995 and became one of the official languages of European Union in 2005. Lithuanian and Latvian are the two living Indo-European languages that belong to the Baltic branch. According to 20013 Census of the Lithuanian Republic, Lithuanian is the native language of 82 percent of Lithuanian citizens4 (Lithuanian Department of Statistics, 2002). Lithuanian is also spoken by Lithuanian emigrants in other countries, including Latvia, Belorus', the Russian Federation, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Australia, and the United States (Zinkevičius, 1998, p. 320). A highly inflected language with a complex nominal and verbal morphology, mobile stress, and free word order (Zinkevičius, 1998, p. 28; Subačius, 2005), Lithuanian is divided into two large dialect groups: Lowland Lithuanian (žemaičių tarmė) and Highland Lithuanian (aukštaičių tarmė). Both of these groups are in turn divided into smaller sub-dialect or sub-sub-dialect groups. Standard Lithuanian is based on South West Highland sub-dialect (pietinių vakarų aukštaičių šnekta), which emerged at the end of the nineteenth century and was closely related to the Lithuanian national awakening. The standard Lithuanian writing system uses a modified Roman script. Lithuanian Immigration to the United States Lithuanian immigration to the United States is usually discussed in terms of three waves (Tumėnas, 2008; Kuzmickaitė, 2003). Lithuanians started immigrating to the United States in the eighteenth century, but the first major wave occurred at the turn of the twentieth century. The main reasons for emigration at that time included poverty, the lack of industry in Lithuania, and unwillingness to serve in the Russian military (Fainhauz, 1991); most Lithuanian immigrants came from lower socioeconomic strata. According to Fainhauz, during the period between 1864 and 1914, approximately 447,642 Lithuanians came to the United States. (1991, p. 18). The largest concentrations of Lithuanians were in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Connecticut, and Baltimore (Fainhauz, 1991, p. 19). Most of them were employed in coal mines, on the railroads, and in the stockyards. According to Fainhauz, at the turn of the twentieth century, ‘Lithuanian’ was largely synonymous with ‘Catholic’ (1991, p. 28). Because of their strong religious affiliation, Lithuanians in almost every large city created parishes and built churches. These parishes served both religious and social needs through mutual aid societies, choirs, theaters, women’s clubs, and schools (Kučas, 1975, pp. 33–34). Between 1871 and 1900, there were thirty-nine Lithuanian parishes in the United States, including seven created in conjunction with Polish worshippers (Kučas, 1975, p. Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 04:22:44PM via free access 110 Heritage Language Journal, 10(1) https://doi.org/10.46538/hlj.10.1.6 Summer, 2013 78). not all of the parishes, according to Kučas, were able to provide full-time schooling; most offered only Saturday or Sunday schools, with a priest teaching Lithuanian language and history (Kučas, 1975, p. 79). However, by the end of the nineteenth century there were already three full-time Lithuanian schools operating, one each in Pittston (Pennsylvania), Chicago, and Pittsburgh. These parish schools flourished during the first three decades of the twentieth century but gradually declined (Masilionis & Petersonienė, 2000), mainly due to financial difficulties, decreasing rates of Lithuanian immigration, increasing secularization of Lithuanian immigrants, and their assimilation to the mainstream American society (Kemėšis, 1934). The second, larger wave of immigration consisted mostly of Lithuanian refugees arriving after World War II. In 1944 when Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union, approximately 60,000 Lithuanians fled to the West (Kučas, 1975, p. 297). After living for several years in displaced persons' camps in Austria and Germany, almost 30,000 of them came to the United States between 1949 and 1952 (Sinochkina, 2001, p. 345). While still in the camps, the Lithuanian resistance organization The Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania published a document, The Lithuanian Charter, which set priorities and values for Lithuanian immigrants. Lithuanian language and education were to play a large role in the formation of Lithuanian identity, as made clear in some of the statements in The Charter: “Language is the strongest tie of the ethnic community. The Lithuanian language is the national honor of all Lithuanians” and “School is the source of the national spirit. It is the lofty duty of each Lithuanian to be a supporter of Lithuanian schools” (The Lithuanian Charter, 1949). The Charter is still one of the main documents of the Lithuanian World Community, an organization founded to unify Lithuanians around the world. The importance of language and Lithuanian schools set in The Charter indicates that the maintenance of language was very important among the immigrants of this wave. The ideology introduced by The Lithuanian Charter strongly influenced the concept of what it means to be “Lithuanian” for the second-wave immigrants: to be “Lithuanian” meant to create Lithuanian families, support Lithuanian schools, and maintain (and pass on) the Lithuanian language. The second wave of immigration started establishing more Lithuanian Saturday schools to provide