Vietnamese Immigrants and Education

Introduction

Language shift can occur in an individual or within a community. For an individual, language shift can generally be defined as a loss in language proficiency or a decreasing use of that language for different purposes. This leads, in turn, to a linguistic atrophy caused by the non-use of a language (Young, 22). For a community, the term refers to a change from one language to another (e.g., immigrants in the United States tend to shift from the use of another language to English). As the shift becomes permanent, fluency in and mastery of the first-acquired language—Spanish, Chinese, Korean, or other—usually declines (Weinbergm, 72).

Language shift is usually talked about concomitantly with language loss, which is the process of losing proficiency—either limited or completely—in a language whether by an individual or a language community. A total and irreversible language loss may be described as language death.

The majority of Vietnamese refugees began their new life in America on public assistance and at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Vietnamese refugees accepted whatever work was available, and often this adaptability required accepting jobs inconsistent with the education and training they received in Vietnam (Park, 41).

Discussion on Language Shift and Loss

Given (Bankston, 17) emphasis on various factors why some languages are kept and others lost and his six factors that affect this process, it is natural to wonder if some immigrant groups are better at maintaining their native or heritage language than others are, or if maintenance is facilitated by the dominant society, for some language groups but not for others.

The education of most refugee children was disrupted for 4 years or more because the Khmer Rouge had shut down the schools and executed teachers. Schooling in the refugee camps was limited. Cambodian students suffered traumatic experiences under the Khmer Rouge and in the refugee camps. Few spoke English, and many of the younger students were not literate in Khmer. Most came from rural backgrounds where their parents had had little formal education.

Despite wide variation in parents' educational backgrounds, immigrant families share striking similarities in the importance they place on education. Studies find that immigrant parents have higher academic motivation, aspirations, and expectations for their children's education than do U.S.-born parents. Their children learn English and U.S. culture more quickly, and parents hope their children can translate those assets into greater educational and economic attainment.

Immigrant Punjabi Sikh and Vietnamese parents' emphasis on education is reinforced by tight-knit immigrant communities with strong norms for academic success and sanctions for poor performance as negative reflections on youth's families.

About 13,000 Vietnamese refugees managed to escape after the Vietnam war started in 1968. This group tended to include members of the educated classes. Most refugees, however, are survivors of the genocide and came to the United States in the 1980s. Most of these refugees were from rural backgrounds with low levels of literacy and education. Beginning in the mid-1990s, it became possible for some Cambodian American families to sponsor their relatives left behind in Cambodia ...