'Heritage' Language Learning and Ethnic Identity: Korean Americans' Struggle with Language Authorities

This study investigates how second-generation Korean-American students form and transform their senses of ethnicity through their participation in Korean language classes. I did a one-year ethnographic study of the Korean language classes (basic and intermediate levels) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, which were largely populated by second- and 1.5-generation Korean Americans. From these Korean-American college students, who have 'successfully' negotiated through the American educational system, I learned that becoming an English speaker does not necessarily mean the loss of ethnic identity, and that learning Korean (a 'heritage' language) does not necessarily lead to homogeneous ethnic identity formation. Although the classroom is certainly a place in which language knowledge is imparted, much classroom activity utilises words and grammatical points as semantic mediators of culture, history, and even politics; in short, the stakes are high. My ethnography focuses on the micro-practices of language teaching and learning in order to explore these interactions, and thereby take up identity formation and transformation. Participants' personal language repertoire and use reflect diverse social worlds and locations (including time of immigration, place of residence, and relationship to the homeland) through which their transnational lived histories have been constituted.