Leaving Room for Minority Culture

Abstract

This chapter is targeted at families raising bilingual and bicultural children in the Japanese school system. In it, I will discuss how one bicultural family approached fitting into Japanese school and society while still developing the minority-language mother’s culture and language. Since one family’s experience could be attributed to unique circumstances, to provide additional insights and perspectives eight other expatriate parents were interviewed either face-to-face (four parents) or via an online survey (four parents) to highlight some of the common strategies and experiences they used over time. For this study, the minority language is English as the international families all have an English first-language (L1) speaker or a bilingual (Japanese/English) parent. Each child in this paper has been educated primarily in Japanese public elementary, and public and private junior high and high schools. However, depending on the circumstance, some families have also chosen to embrace education outside the Japanese system. For some, this was a few weeks or months during elementary school, and for others it was for university or study abroad. For all the families who participated in my research for this chapter, education included an organized social and educational support group for raising bilingual children outside of school. Specifically, this chapter will explore the following: (1) how expatriate parents supported their own culture; (2) the importance of support from other families raising bilingual English/Japanese children while living in Japan; (3) what parts of these families’ experiences can enrich the lives of other bicultural families; and (4) how families can balance Japanese school clubs (bukatsu), supplementary education, school, and finances to support a family while still maintaining a minority language and culture.