The Rediscovery of Heritage and Community Language Education in the United States

Abstract

Language and cultural preservation efforts among different communities of language speakers in the United States have received increasing attention as interest in linguistic rights and globalization continues to deepen. In addition to mounting evidence of the cognitive, psychological, and academic benefits of heritage language/ community language (HL/CL) maintenance for linguistic-minority children (see Lee & Suarez, 2009, for a summary of the research), scholars have advocated for the recognition, support, and utilization of the potentially rich pool of HLs/CLs as a resource for filling linguistic and cultural voids in professional and political sectors of our society (Brecht & Ingold, 1998; Peyton, Ranard, & McGinnis, 2001; Wiley, 2005b, 2007). Yet the maintenance of HLs/CLs even among children of first-generation immigrants has been difficult, and it has been nearly unattainable beyond the third generation (Fishman, 2001; Rumbaut, 2009; Veltman, 1983). Counter to popular beliefs that HLs/CLs can be easily maintained in the home if parents speak to their children in the HL/CL, studies have shown that home language use alone is an insufficient condition for producing highly proficient users of the language, particularly those who can function in professional domains. Some form of explicit instruction is needed (Fillmore, 1991, 2000; Lao & Lee, 2009; Lee, 2002; Wright, 2004). Throughout U.S. history, the most significant efforts for HL/CL instruction outside the home have occurred in community-based HL/CL schools (Fishman, 2001;