Introduction前言 I
n May, most students flood out from classrooms, fresh from their finals, eager to fully celebrate summer. But no group is more exuberant than the students of West Valley Chinese Language School (WVCLS). As soon as the bell rings, the classroom is deserted within seconds. Any control the teacher had over them is lost, and the students will leave for their long-awaited summer break, when no traces of their heritage language, the language that their immigrant parents passed down to them, will cross their minds until the dreary days of September approach. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence. China’s population totals a mind blowing 1.35 billion people, easily making it the world’s most populated country. Yet this number does not account for the other 50 million overseas Chinese, descendents of Chinese immigrants or immigrants themselves. Numbering 10.2 million people in the 2000 U.S. census, Asian Americans make up 3.8% of the U.S. popula-
tion. Chinese Americans, the largest subgroup in that category, constitute more than 20% of Asian Americans. (World Population Statistics) For its large population, the Republic of China maintains a largely homogenous population. Any non-Chinese person spotted in most parts of China (with the exception of the somewhat more international cities of Beijing and Shanghai) is almost sure to be a tourist. Not only is there little direct exposure to foreign cultures, the Chinese culture and history are revered, memorized by every student. My mother, who has lived in the U.S. for twenty years now, can still recite each of the dynasties, emperors and countless poems word for word. It would stand that the Chinese language would be equally revered, spreading internationally alongside Chinese immigration. But while Chinese has seen growth with nonChinese speakers as a secondary language, the Chinese heritage language population, the Chinese descendants that actually know Chinese, has dropped severely since the days of the Gold Rush, when immigrant Chinese