Heritage Language Education Without Inheriting Hegemonic Ideologies: Shifting Perspectives on “Korea” in a Weekend Japanese-Language School in the United States

Abstract

ABSTRACTLearning a heritage language can be celebrated to enhance marginalized groups’ self-esteem, but a heritage can also encompass ideologies prevalent in the groups’ original homeland. Based on ethnographic fieldwork (2007–2011) at a weekend Japanese-language school in the United States, this article investigates how ideologies on race politics within a heritage language community’s homeland are reproduced or subverted through heritage language education. We analyze treatment of Korea–Japan power relations at school by focusing on the practice of guiding students (not) to shift their perspectives in three cases involving (a) discrimination against Resident Koreans in Japan, (b) gender-specific abortion in South Korea, and (c) South Korea and Japan’s dispute over possession of Tokdo/Takeshima. While social analyses of heritage language education tend to focus on a minority group’s place in mainstream society, this article suggests investigating the reproduction of ideologies from its homeland via heritage language education.