Stories of Chinese-American Mixed-Heritage Learners: Their Mixed-Heritage Identities and Heritage Maintenance

Conference: The Asian Conference on Education (ACE2022)
Title: Stories of Chinese-American Mixed-Heritage Learners: Their Mixed-Heritage Identities and Heritage Maintenance
Stream: Challenging & Preserving: Culture, Inter/Multiculturalism & Language
Presentation Type: Virtual Presentation
Authors:
Ko-Yin Sung, Utah State University, United States

Abstract:

This study aims to provide a better understanding of how Chinese-American mixed-heritage college students form their mixed-heritage identities and identify life events and incidents which help shape the mixed-heritage participants’ identity formation and heritage language and culture maintenance. This study involved eight Chinese-American mixed heritage college students in the United Stated. By analyzing the in-depth one-on-one interview data through the lens of the poststructuralist view of identity, this study found that the participants’ heritage language use during childhood and their current heritage language level did not negatively influence their mixed-heritage identities and heritage maintenance; instead, it was minority culture-related events and incidents that occurred at different points of the participants’ life times that helped transform their mixed-heritage identities. Nonetheless, other types of life incidents, such as stereotypical assumptions toward mixed-heritage individuals, negatively affected the participants’ formation of their mixed-heritage identities, illustrating the dynamic and fluid nature of identity formation and transformation.

Virtual Presentation

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