I came across the story of Joyce Shui and her daughter on Angry Asian Man's blog. Apparently, a judge has told the Chinese American mother she cannot enroll her child in a Japanese-language immersion preschool in the Eastside because it would cause the daughter to become confused and delay her language skills. According to Northwest Asian Weekly:
Shui claims her ex-husband does not want their daughter to finish the Japanese program because the girl would be developmentally delayed and her English skills would be stunted. Shui also said her ex-husband fears that their daughter would grow up confused and that learning another language would put too much pressure on the child. Shui added that he would feel distanced from his daughter because he does not speak any languages other than English.That's such B.S. I can't believe this kind of stuff is still going on nowadays, here in Seattle of all places. Joyce Shui, chin up.
That said, I was a little disturbed by something else I read in the NW Asian Weekly article:
Shui, whose parents grew up in Japanese-ruled China, says she wants her two daughters to be aware of their Japanese and Chinese backgrounds.Um ... unless one of your parents are Japanese, Japan's imperialist aggression is not exactly a good reason to teach your child the language. Maybe more than one party in this dispute is being a little culturally ignorant?
3 comments:
The ignorant one here is you: by your reasoning, the only people who ought to learn English should be those of English blood. While we're at it, perhaps all those French and Spanish learners without Latin ancestry ought to give up all interest in the languages, eh?
the way the article put it, it seems as though joyce shui wants her daughter to learn japanese because imperialist japan invaded and slaughtered millions of chinese. just thought it quite odd to teach your child a language just because it was used by invaders of your country.
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