Asian Language Schools Foster Skills, Traditions

IRVINE —  In the beginning, they were four teachers and 30 children who gathered every week in a small rented schoolroom.

These days, the clanging of a hand-held brass bell summons 1,000 youngsters, ages 5 to 18, to Sunday mornings at the Irvine Chinese School, which has mushroomed over the past 22 years into the largest Chinese cultural school in Southern California.

Spectacular as its growth has been, the school represents but a fraction of a tremendous movement by the region’s Asian Americans to swim against the tides of total assimilation and instill in their children an understanding of their ancestral culture and language.

Operating from rented schools and small church rooms, under canvas tents and in Buddhist temples, the Southland’s Asian American communities have created a network of ethnic schools that has doubled in number as well as students during the past 10 years.

About 50,000 students study language and culture at 33 Japanese, 55 Vietnamese, 140 Chinese and 335 Korean schools spread from the San Gabriel Valley to San Diego every Saturday or Sunday.

And all of this is accomplished strictly by volunteers.

Although Asian cultural schools were born before the turn of the century, the boom has been touched off by the surge in Asian immigration the past 30 years, primarily from Taiwan, Korea and Vietnam. And it has been fed by the very success of these immigrants and their children in assimilating into the mainstream culture.

Fueled primarily by first-generation fears that their mainly English-speaking children are losing touch with their ancestral roots, the schools are fast becoming a nationwide fixture.

“We all saw what was happening with our children, and we felt we needed to get involved,” said Peter Liu, former principal of Irvine Chinese School and now vice president of the National Council of Assns. of Chinese Language Schools. “If we sat back and did nothing, we would lose our second generation.”

Easier travel and global communication have made Asian American parents all the more anxious to train their children in cultural literacy, so that they can communicate with grandparents and other relatives in their homeland in a society that places a high value on extended family.

The schools also are drawing a new population of older youth who see the practical benefits of bilingual and bicultural understanding in a world economy that increasingly focuses on the Pacific Rim.

So while their friends head to soccer and Little League games, Asian American students by the tens of thousands are prodded each weekend into picking up their book bags and heading off to another day of school.

“[My children] have to go,” said Simon Jung, principal of the Nambu Korean School in Garden Grove and father of a fourth- and a seventh-grader. “They have no choice. But every Saturday, they say ‘Why do we have to go to Korean school? Why do we have to go to school seven days a week [counting Sunday bible school]? We don’t have time to play.’ But I know that when they get older and go to a university, they will say ‘Thank you’ to their parents. I’ve seen that.”

Nationwide, about 85,000 to 90,000 students attend Chinese schools--nearly a quarter of those in Southern California. Though U.S. statistics for Korean and Vietnamese American communities are not available, anecdotal evidence suggests similar levels of participation. Not surprisingly, California, New York and Texas, the main ports of entry for Asian immigrants, are the main centers of growth.

The movement’s roots are embedded in California, home to the nation’s largest Asian American community.

Americanized Generations

In Southern California alone, there are about 20,000 students attending Chinese schools, 20,000 at Korean schools, 8,000 in Vietnamese schools and 2,000 in Japanese schools.

The irony is not lost on Gregory Park, a founder of the first Korean American school in Orange County who has watched hundreds of parents drive up on weekend mornings to drop off children.

“So many of these first-generation parents went to English as a second language classes,” Park said “Now, they are all bringing their children to Korean language class. Maybe it’s a sign of how far we have come.”

Historically, most immigrant groups have followed a similar story. The first generation of immigrants watches the second generation adapt too well to American culture, said Ronald Takaki, professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley.

But for many years, Asian immigrants were slower to abandon their ethnic heritage, largely because the American mainstream made it hard for them to blend in.

Yet the children of the most recent waves of Asian immigration pick up American ways with a speed their parents find a little scary.

After two decades of living in the United States, Westminster attorney Trung Nguyen has watched the unmistakable Americanization of his children, ages 10 and 16.

With English their first language, Nguyen knows that Vietnam and its traditions are only stories they hear. But he wants them to know something of the homeland their parents left behind.

“I’d like them to know the language, know a little bit about their background, know where their grandparents came from. So that when they say, ‘I am Vietnamese American,’ they know what Vietnamese really means,” Nguyen said.

Professor Son Kim Vo, director of the Intercultural Development Center at Cal State Fullerton, says Asian immigrants also are motivated to maintain their language because the culture emphasizes close ties with extended family.

“In my [extended] family, we all speak Chinese, Mandarin. I don’t want [my son Wesley] to forget,” said Winnie Liu of Tustin Ranch. “Many friends of ours came here and spoke English only at home. They were afraid their children wouldn’t learn otherwise, but I think that’s a mistake. Children learn so fast.”

On a recent Sunday afternoon, instructions barked out on a megaphone call a crowd of children to order in the central courtyard of La Quinta High School in Westminster, where the Hong Bang Cultural Center holds classes.

Dressed in Hong Bang’s teal T-shirts, youngsters file into orderly rows by class level. As the national anthems of the United States and the former South Vietnam blare over a loudspeaker, the 450 students stand at attention as red, white and blue along with red and yellow fly overhead. It is the monthly flag ceremony, a ritual for schools in Vietnam.

From Martial Arts to Music Lessons

As in most other schools, the format calls for two hours of instruction in reading, speaking and writing followed by an hour of cultural activity, which ranges from martial arts to brush painting to music lessons.

Afterward, in teacher Nam Dinh’s class, the students politely rise to greet a visitor before returning to the work at hand.

‘Ruuuh, oooo, roooh, ruuuh, eee, reeeeh,” high-pitched voices chime, filling the classroom with sounds of rote pronunciation as they read from a textbook.

‘Ru ri. Does anyone know what that means?’ Dinh asks. “It means whisper, or speaking quietly to each other. Like when you don’t want Teacher Nam to hear something, you speak ru ri.”

He draws laughs from the class. Dinh routinely mixes Vietnamese with English, knowing that the majority of his class is far more fluent in the latter.

The curriculum at this school, like its counterparts, focuses on basics, but when possible, there is an emphasis on traditional customs and values. Books contain stories about several generations living together or New Year’s customs. Celebrations, complete with children’s performances, are staged for Tet and Harvest Moon festivals.

Volunteer labor keeps costs low, making the schools even more attractive to families. In cases where tuition is charged--$30 to $240 a year--it goes for maintenance, school materials, or rental of the site.

“Even when I was principal, my husband was the custodian. We all did everything,” said Terry Lee, who remained a volunteer at Irvine Chinese School long after her children, now 27 and 25, had gone on to college. “Parental involvement is essential to making this work.”

In addition to the participation of parents, the schools draw volunteers with top credentials, like Leo Lee, a UC Irvine instructor of ESL.

He combines classical Chinese literature and Taoist philosophy with Chinese poetry, all delivered via funny anecdotes and interesting stories.

“I don’t want my students sitting there seriously doing academic work all the time. Most of the kids, to be honest, don’t want to be here. Their parents want them to be here.”

He is right, admits Sophia Liou, 14, a freshman from Foothill Ranch who has attended for seven years.

“Sometimes I resent it, like when it’s vacation and you still have homework for Chinese school. You want to relax but you can’t,” she said. “I’d like to quit, but my parents keep making me come.”

Going Back to Family Roots

But for every Liou, there is a student like Rose Bae, who wishes her parents had pushed her to go to language class. At 19, the Cal State Long Beach sophomore is among the newer students at Nambu Korean School, and the one struggling to keep up with her 6- and 7-year-old classmates.

“I’m the oldest by far,” she says with a laughing grimace. “It can be very frustrating. I feel very behind.”

Bae, a native of Long Beach, says she grew up speaking Korean to her family but didn’t know how to read and write. During high school, Bae felt the initial stirrings of curiosity about her roots. By the time she reached college, she decided, with her parents’ encouragement, to join a Korean school.

“It’s hard being in between cultures, trying to reconcile the two, but it’s worth it,” said the English major. “I think a lot of people born here try to deny their heritage. I think they’re missing out.”

Perhaps most importantly, the schools plant a seed of interest in children’s minds that is bound to grow, says Peter Liu, the vice president of the National Council of Assns. of Chinese Language Schools.

“My eldest daughter went from kindergarten till she finished high school,” said Liu. “Like many children, she felt at times, ‘I’m not Chinese, I’m American.’ She felt a lot of resentment. But now, the Chinese part is so deep inside of her.

“She is taking Chinese history and art at Berkeley and she loves it,” he said gleefully. “I have to laugh.”