An excessively long play in three acts.
The Background
It goes without saying that in our house, Mr. A’s experiences and thoughts about raising Asian kids to have a solid racial identity carry a lot of weight. (And for that matter, the simple fact that we want them to identify as Asian/Asianish is based on Mr. A’s own struggle to figure that shit out as he was growing up.) So when Mr. A tells me something is important, I believe him and I move forward to make it happen.
For example, Mr. A has told me time and again that the fact that his parents didn’t make him learn Chinese was the single worst mistake they ever made. This is a significant statement if you knew how many poor decisions MIL and FIL made while Mr. A was growing up. So Mr. A wants our kids to speak Chinese, so I go out and find tutors and a Chinese school.
Chinese school is a pain in the ass, no question about it. M takes a dance class and a preschool language class. Besides the fact that we never know what the hell is going on, the dance class is fine. The language class, though, is not created for a kid like M who doesn’t speak Chinese at home. We tried to put her in the class for English speakers and the teacher booted her because she was too advanced due to Chinese tutoring.
But in the other preschool class, Mr. A has to attend with her because she doesn’t know what is going on because it is all in Chinese. Additionally, Mr. A has now drafted his father to also attend the class because Mr. A can’t understand all the preschooler vocabulary that is being used. The class is 1.5 hours long.
The Drama
There is some kind of internal conflict going on between the Chinese school board and the parents at the school. We aren’t exactly clear about what it is, but one of our Chinese speaking friends was all fired up about it. In addition to whatever the problem is, she is also pissed that they aren’t making the materials for a big parent meeting available in English. Sunday morning, we go to the zoo with her.
At the zoo, our friend gets Mr. A all rowdy about the fact that the school is run like a communist bureaucracy. Mr. A also gets agitated about the fact that he feels like a second class citizen because he isn’t fluent in Chinese.
Statements by Mr. A at the zoo and on the way to Chinese school:
-It isn’t my fault my parents didn’t teach me Chinese! I have as much right to be there as anyone else!
-This is AMERICA! I am an Asian American! Just like their kids are going to be! Do they really think their little once-a- week school is going to create fluent kids?? Their kids and grandkids will be just like me! Then they will be sorry!
-They are missing a huge marketing opportunity by making it so difficult for kids like M! Second generation Asians won’t put up with this bullshit! We won’t be treated like second class citizens!
-I will sit through Chinese class with M for one more year, but if they don’t change it, I am pulling her out!! She is going to feel inferior because she can’t be successful in this school!
-MY KIDS won’t have to put up wiht being treated as second class citizens! If you want them to be around other Asian kids, *I* can provide that! We don’t need Chinese school!
Comments by me in response to Mr. A’s comments:
-I think part of the problem is that they don’t need more students, so they don’t want to market classes to our families. They have way too many students as it is. Chinese school isn’t perfect, but it is our best option if you want M to learn Chinese.
-Uh, they are all Chinese from China, what did you expect? Of course they think you are inferior.
-If you want to pull M out, we could try the Taiwanese school. It meets on Saturdays and it is smaller. Or I could take M to China in the summer so she can do an immersion program at the American School in Beijing. We could focus the rest of the year on tutoring her to keep up what she learns. There are also Chinese camps in the US when she is old enough to go away by herself. Or we could send her to the private school that starts Chinese in 6th grade here.
I also pointed out that all the Asian kids and most of the Asian friends/acquaintances we have came from 1)Asian preschool and 2) Chinese school or a combination of the two. And also that *I* facilitated most of that, not Mr. A. It is true, though, he does pony up the Asian relatives.
To each of my suggestions, Mr. A came up with a reason why not. He kept returning to the flawed the Chinese school administration and classes and the fact that he knows tons of Asian people professionally (who are not friends of ours and who do not have kids who play with our kids).
Then we went to the parent meeting, which was unfortunately held completely in Chinese. There was a lot of yelling into a loudspeaker and waving around papers. Our friend tried to translate what she could for us. It was boring as hell.
I spent the last half of the class time helping M in her class. Contrary to Mr. A’s statement that M felt inferior because she didn’t know what was going on, M was totally fine. She was proud she knew some of the vocabulary and practiced writing some characters. She seemed happy enough to be there and all the other kids were struggling too.
The Conclusion
Needless to say, the “discussion” between Mr. A and I later turned into an argument about Chinese school.
It pisses me off that he claims that it is really really really important to him that our kids learn Chinese, then he keeps threatening to yank M out of Chinese school because he has issues with the school administration. It also pisses me off that he immediately rejects other potential solutions like sending me on vacation M to an immersion camp in China or Taiwan.
I pointed out to Mr. A that he is putting me in a really difficult position, because I have to rely on him to make certain priorities for raising our Asian kids. What the hell do *I* know about being Asian? What the heck am I supposed to do if he says something is important and then refuses to prioritize it over his need to be a big whiny baby about Chinese people at Chinese school?
After some sulking and a little snippiness, Mr. A admitted that the problem with Chinese school was about HIM not M. He admitted he was projecting his own issues from childhood regarding Chinese people onto the school.*
In the end, we decided to keep doing what we are doing and reevaluate as needed. I am serious about the Chinese camps though. I would totally love to escort M and L to China for six weeks or so.
*Mr. A wants you all to know he is working on this issue. If he doesn’t get it sorted out, maybe I will send him to therapy to deal with his Chinese school angst. Heh. That would be really funny.
Hey, I would love to accompany M for 6 weeks in China, too. I’m sure many more of us would volunteer, too!
This sounds so much like the whole Jewish Hebrew school thing. I can’t even begin to tell you the angst Jewish parents have about this exact same thing. The generation after mine, people more your age, had a bunch of parents who assimilated to the degree that they didn’t learn anything about their religion, never mind Hebrew. It was the day when Bar Mitzvah’s were done in ENGLISH (which is just too weird to comtemplate). Now things have changed, but these parents have huge guilt over not being able to teach their kids anything about Hebrew and the religion. They send their kids to Jewish day school hoping the school will fill in the gaps, but the schools send home work in Hebrew that the parents can’t read, etc. So freaking similar!
Our public school start teaching Mandarin in 6th grade. It goes all the way up through high school, and the kids are fairly fluent by the time they graduate high school. You could always more here.
This probably wouldn’t be useful, BUT I did an MA at the East Asian dept. at OSU, and I’m still in contact with some Chinese friends there (an admin. person and an instructor). They don’t have kids, but since a lot of information about alternative language learning programs goes through the department, they might be useful in figuring out less painful ways of learning Chinese.
It sounds like you’ve got your bases covered, but if you’re interested feel free to email me at xilerui [at] hotmail.com.
I can kind of sympathize with Mr. A’s frustration about not having learned Chinese himself; I’m obviously not Asian, but 7 years in Hong Kong and I can only speak enough Cantonese to take a taxi to my school and/or destroy a friendship with a casual, but caustic, insult? It’s embarassing and I kick myself on a daily basis about it. Hang in there.
My 2nd generation Japanese-American parents did not speak English until they went to kindergarten, and then felt all ostracized and such, so they were NOT about to send me, their adopted hapa 3rd generation daughter, to Japanese school. Which I angsted over just like Mr. A. And tried MANY times to learn as an adult but could not figure out. But now our 4th-generation half-a-hapa daughter is taking Japanese in high school, and out-fluenting us all. So. It’s funny, these generational language sagas.
I understand Mr A’s confliction. Sacrifices are made as first generation folks try to make a beachead in America. I too regret forgetting the language. But, [shrug], that’s done.
Often, being Asian-American = being bewildered and pissed-off at other Asians.
That’s my somewhat cynical perspective
My only advice would be to try not to let your family get caught up in language as a cultural point scoring system. If she is getting a lot out of it, then the enjoyment of learning should be more important than the ultimate goal.
I lost all my Japanese within a year of moving to America. I’ve made my peace with that, but it was difficult.
I can totally relate to Mr. A. My parents did not make me learn Chinese, and I regret my parents’ decision. I want my daughter to be fluent in Mandarin, but I can barely understand the language. I am embarrassed that my Mandarin is so poor and feel left out of the Chinese community at times, even though I was born there. The burden is on my shoulders to ensure that my daughter learn the language and culture, and I feel conflicted about the entire situation.
Just to illustrate my comment above, look what I just found in my bloglines reads:
http://modernjewishmom.com/nucleus/
I”m with Margalit — This reminds me of some of my discussion with my rabbi when I was converting. He was very upset that my dad was such a lousy Jew and I kept saying, “Heck, yell at my father — I can’t do anything about it now and you better learn how to deal with half-Jews like me because we’re all over the place and if you don’t take care of us, we won’t be able to raise more little Jews for y’all.”
How frustrating.
I know this isn’t anywhere near the same thing, but I am kind of going through something similar with ASL and the Deaf community. Although I know tons of vocabulary, my ASL grammar and structure suck. I am not “culturally” Deaf. I want the kids to learn ASL. Not only so we can communicate but so they can communicate with others in the deaf community who kind of end up being my social structure.
They don’t quite fit in with CODAs, children of deaf adults because I am not culturally deaf. I have a hard time getting my kids in with ‘real’ CODA kids because their signing is so advanced as they are fluent at thome. Yet all of the little baby sign classes are way too easy for them. They get bored being taught “milk” and “more” over and over again.
I don’t know if true “fluency” is in the cards for them. But I will settle for enough exposure to communicate with mom and if they are having fun learning then all the better, I guess. Still, keeping them signing while everyone else talks to them in English is an uphill battle.
I think the issue is a lot greater than just language school. I grew up in the NW, but went to college in the Midwest. It was the first time I encountered Asians who struggled with their sense of identity. They basically weren’t comfortable being Asian or being identified as Asian.
It was the first time I heard Asian girls say they date white guys b/c Asian guys remind them of their fathers or brothers, and it was incestuous (wtf?), or that Asian men weren’t attractive, or any other stereotype that they completely bought into. Or that they hated looking at themselves in the mirror b/c in their minds they were blonde-haired and blue-eyed. One girl even shaved her head in frustration. That not speaking the language, dating white, trying to be as “American” as possible would make them “American” ie. “white.” Unless you’re in a big city, it’s very easy to grow up surrounded by nothing but white people, and that becomes your norm. But M, and esp. L, will never pass for completely white. And as such, they’ll be expected to speak their native language, as Mr. A struggles with now.
And regardless of how difficult Chinese school becomes, making them go will allow them to be surrounded by other Asians so that they grow up comfortable being Asian. Even if they never become completely fluent in Chinese, they’ll at least be familiar with the language, culture, and people. And who knows, when they get to college, those residual early lessons will take much more readily if you start them on it now.
A large part of Asian American identity is being able to speak your ethnic language. It’s just one less struggle they have to deal with later on. I wish my parents had made me go to Chinese school when I was little. Although I’m fluent in Vietnamese, there have been many times that I wished I knew Chinese. Besides, I always tell my parents they made us study and do lots of other things we didn’t want to do, why didn’t they drum in language school too?
BTW, in SoCal, we now have drive-thru banh mi shops that are open 24 hours. And 10-inch banh mi can be bought 3 for $4.
Oh, yeah. My kid’s going to be old enough for Chinese school in the fall. Allyson is fluent, and MIL-who-lives-with-us is fluent. Alex knows body parts, clothing, numbers, some opposites, but absolutely nothing useful for communicating. Plus the local Chinese community is all mainland-China immigrants, and MIL and Allyson are Taiwanese immigrants. I think we’ll avoid the whole two-mom thing by having Allyson be the contact person, because MIL is active in the local church community and she’s closeted about us.
If Alex ends up in public elementary school (freeing up some cash), I see some summers in Taiwan in her future.
Good luck with getting it all sorted out. Language Immersion summer camps are getting more and more popular but of course there’s no substitution for immersion in China.
As annother Jew who learned just enough Hebrew to follow along in a Reform service I can relate to the other angsty Jews. It’s funny for me that first to languages I studied were Hebrew and Latin and neither were taught as conversationally. (my nutty latin teacher tried to make us speak only in Latin once or twice) it wasn’t until I took Italian that I did the basic beginner conversation stuff with language learnining such as learning colors, directions, body parts, other basics.
I mourn the loss of Yiddish as well. All of my grandparents (first or second generation americans) grew up speaking some yiddish but they never taught more than a few words of it to my parents.
Come to China! We can set you up. No worries.
we struggled with the same thing here — from the opposite perspective. Hubby is fluent in spoken Mandarin (Mandarin was his first language until first grade and even now he only speaks Mandarin with his family) but he HATED Chinese school and quit as a kid. As a result he cannot read or write. He hated it because it was (at least then) taught in a very typically Chinese way – rote memorization, repetion, out-loud repeating, very strict teachers etc etc. When I brought up Chinese school for our kids he totally vetoed it based on his childhood perspective. We did try one class — taught by someone from mainland China and it was indeed taught in a very Chinese way. Nothing “wrong” with it, but our very American son HATED it.
I agree with Atlasien that it is easy to see language as the end-all and be-all of culture. In my opinion as well, with more third and fourth generation Chinese-American, the ability to speak or not speak Mandarin will become less and less a “test” of Asianness. We were lucky enough to go to the OCA anual banquet a few years ago and it was very mixed in how many adults spoke Mandarin (maybe 50/50) and much of the leadership had become second generation Chinese-American.
Our son, then 7, was more impressed that the first 4 star Chinese-American U.S. Army general spoke at the reception. He still talks abut that experience and doesn’t seem at all to wish he spoke more Chinese. But — he will be looking for things to blame us for . . . so he might pick not knowing Chinese when he is older. Sigh.
Last note, I promise. I would follow M’s lead and as long as she is happy, keep going.
DS-L
How does M feel about it? I would stop, if it is too much stress!
i am raising half asian children (i really don’t like that hapa term, it seems to me to be as offensive as calling someone a mulatto) and i do not struggle at all with any of these issues of maintaining an “identity”. my husband (who is 2nd generation chinese american) also does not struggle with his identity or his role as an “asian american”. at best, he smiles and shakes his head when someone attempts to speak to him in chinese. we don’t do chinese school, dancing, language, fairs, games, books, music. but we also don’t do irish dancing, schools, language, fairs, games, books or music.
reading your entries makes me happy that we’ve not enrolled our kids in these types of courses. they are well aware of their heritage, through us and our families. i could give three hoots if someone looks at them and “expects” them to speak chinese and judges them because they can’t. and if they are angry at me when they are older for *not* doing it, well, they can just add it to the long list of trangressions i’ll have committed!
I am a hapa and I like the term very much. I believe in letting people define themselves and choose their own names.
Some biracial black/white people call themselves just plain black or African-American, some say biracial, a few even use the word mulatto. I would not like to tell them what they should call themselves.
This isn’t about your husband but have you tried other methods when it comes to learning another language?
I heard that the language software “The Rosetta Stone” is quite effective.
The only downside I’ve seen from it so far is that it doesn’t give you complete command of the entire language but enough to read at a high school level.
I like “hapa” too — but have always found it to be used in a very positive way — a term of affirmation. Has anyone heard of it being used negatively?
DS-L
Feel sorry for you, really. But don’t take them out of Chinese school. I’m a second genereation Korean, and can´t say a word beyond hello and thank you. My dad never had the patience to teach us, nor was there a Korean school to attend. I REALLY regret not being able to speak and write it now that I’m all grown up. It’s really frustraiting and embarrassing when there’s a whole lot of Koreans around you and you can’t understand a word…
We are struggling with something similar. We are considering moving to Cupertino, where they have a Mandarin immersion program in the public elementary school. But we heard that it is really mostly kids who speak Chinese at home and the few kids who aren’t already fluent feel “stupid” because they are SO far behind. On the other hand, what a wonderful opportunity for the kids to learn young and really become fluent – and at a public school!
We also looked at bilingual preschools for our bio son, but they are all M-F programs and he is only 3. Maybe next year! But I also really believe preschool should be play-based, which I’m pretty sure wouldn’t be the case at a bilingual mandarin school. There is one bilingual montessori I will have to check out, though.
I think you should move back to SF. Or move to Cupertino with us.