Construction of immigrant mothers’ language experiences in Taiwan: Mothering in one’s second language is a ‘choice’?

Abstract

This study dissects a cross-border linguistic dilemma and critiques the missed opportunities for linguistic diversity in Taiwan. Past studies have shown that immigrant mothers from Southeast Asia are discouraged from transmitting the cultures and languages of their home countries to their children, yet few voices have been heard from the mothers themselves. Taking a poststructuralist approach on identity and employing life story interviews, the study examines the mothers’ language experiences and explores how their language choices as mothers are constructed by and reconstructing the changing family, social, and national contexts. The mothers’ narratives reveal that whether to pass down their first language to their children is an on-going, complex decision-making process shaped by one’s immigration status, dynamic family relationships and roles, and changing life circumstances. The study contributes to the field by highlighting these mothers’ native tongues in such immigrant families as sites of oppression and liberation as we envision equitable, multicultural societies in Taiwan.