Speaking against racism: stories of successful Chinese L2 learners of color in China

ABSTRACT

This study reports on two students of color studying abroad in China and examines the dialectic between their interpretation of American racism and their agency to study in China and speak Chinese. There have been steady increases in the number of ethnically minoritized students among the study abroad population, but students of color typically travel to places associated with their ethnolinguistic heritage. Existing research exploring study abroad students of color also tends to examine – either exclusively or partially – heritage learners with ethnolinguistic or ethnocultural affiliations to their destinations. This study switches the focus to black and brown American students learning Chinese in China. The results shed light on the relationship between structural racism they encounter in the U.S. and their agency to seek a place as an alternative to white dominance and enact a discourse against American racism. However, paradoxically, they also dismissed the racialization that they experienced in China as simple gestures of curiosity. These findings illustrate the potential of foreign language learning to engage students from disenfranchised groups in the critical discussion of race relationships.

Acknowledgments

This study is based on a project that received a Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education via the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language, and Literacy (CERCLL). It received additional funding from CERCLL and the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona. I thank Dr. Paul Chamness Iida and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on previous versions of this manuscript. I am also indebted to Drs. Janice McGregor and Emily Hellmich, who have provided valuable feedback on previous drafts. All remaining errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Some of these studies investigate learners who were learning a heritage language (e.g., a Latinx student learning Spanish in Spain), while the focal students in other studies were studying in a country of ancestral heritage (e.g., a Mexican-American student studying in Mexico).

2. The term Anglophone here refers to English-speaking individuals living in English-speaking countries. It includes multilingual students who grew up speaking English natively too.

3. Yi Wang, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Arizona is working on a dissertation project in which one African American student reportedly experienced color-based racism in China.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Education.