Chinese immigrants united for self-empowerment: Case study of a weekend Chinese school.

摘要

This study explores a common cultural practice in immigrant Chinese communities---nonformal Chinese language education for children of Chinese immigrants---through a case study of a weekend Chinese school founded by immigrants from Taiwan in Southern California.; Using in-depth interviews, field observations, and documents/texts, the study explores the school process as a field that represents the physical manifestation of resources and the collective memory of human agency. Adult participants of the Chinese school, comprising parent volunteers, teachers, and administrators, were interviewed in order to understand the meaning of ethnic preservation for the Other---a culturally marginalized group in the society.; Aiming to cultivate altruistic citizens through ethnic maintenance, the weekend school under study functions as an important mechanism of selective acculturation. The school provides fifteen levels of Chinese language courses for students aged five to eighteen. Mandarin is the language of instruction. Chinese language learners are expected to acquire approximately 1,300 Chinese characters after completing the fifteen levels at the school. Familiarity with 1,300 Chinese characters and their combined usages places students at a fifth- or sixth-grade reading level. The vast majority of students of the Chinese school are able and willing to communicate with their parents in Mandarin after receiving their Chinese education at the weekend school.; The adult participants of the Chinese school are empowered by the school process as parents and as immigrants searching for identity affirmation. The indoctrination of Confucian and Buddhist thoughts reinforces the ethnic identity of the adult immigrants. Inculcation of the traditional Chinese value of filial piety strengthens their parental authority.; The social profile of the parents at the Chinese school shows that the vast majority are middle-class immigrants with substantial human capital. This finding contradicts stereotypical thinking that has stigmatized bilingual education as an educational practice needed only by underclass immigrant minorities.; This study proposes nonformal education as an alternative to true bilingual education, which is no longer available to language minority children in the public school system following the passage of Proposition 227.