Amid the buzz surrounding the supposed economic advantage of
having more Americans able to speak Chinese, a number of students
at UCLA are studying the language for a different reason.
These students said they are studying Chinese language and
culture in order to gain a better understanding of their roots
““ not simply to gain an upper hand in the business world.
David Tran, a fourth-year Chinese student, said he has always
wanted to study the language because he is Chinese but did not
learn it while growing up.
Though Tran was initially a business economics student, after
taking Chinese courses his freshman year, he said he “fell in
love with it” and decided to make it his major.
Juyuan Wei, a third-year international development studies
student who lived in China until he was 3, said he believes it is
important for children and students from any culture to learn their
culture’s native language.
“Chinese is important for me because it’s my
language, my culture and something I should know,” he
said.
Wei said he is taking an advanced Chinese language course at
UCLA in order to perfect his reading and writing skills in his
native language, which he said is the language he speaks at home
and with many of his friends.
He also acknowledged that his ability to communicate in Chinese
is a good skill to have as China’s economy continues to
grow.
Chinese schools were initially established in America about 100
years ago for much the same reason these students are studying the
language today.
The creators of these schools ““ often called Chinese
heritage schools ““ sought to assure that the
“transmission of Chinese language and culture” through
generations of people and schools existed “for the
preservation of Chinese language and culture,” said Shuhan
Wang, a supervisor for World Languages and International Education
for the Delaware Department of Education.
Makeshift classrooms were created in the basements of schools
and churches in the United States in the early 1900s with the
influx of Chinese-speaking immigrants, said Scott McGinnis, an
academic adviser for the Washington office of the Defense Language
Institute.
He said these informal schools provided the opportunity for
second and third generation immigrants to learn Chinese language
and culture skills.
Parents and teachers work in the heritage schools on a volunteer
basis, and the classes often meet on weekends or off-school
hours.
Though Chinese language is now taught in schools nationwide,
McGinnis said about 150,000 students still studied in Chinese
heritage schools in 2003.
This suggests that many students still wish to study Chinese in
order to preserve their heritage, Wang said.
She distinguished between the perspectives of people who study
the Chinese language as a heritage language and those who study it
as a foreign language.
Chinese as a heritage language is studied by students of Chinese
descent who wish to learn about their own ancestors, Wang said,
while Chinese as a world language is generally studied for
communication purposes.