Three Stories of Language, Learning, and Teaching: Sustaining Multilingual Futures and Fluid Identities Across Taiwan and the U.S.
Yun-Pu Tu, Huiyu Lin, Hsin-Jung Li, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Introduction
In this piece, we offer three stories about how multilingual learning and teaching are signs of resilience and empowerment. As we tell these stories, we reflect on how we, since childhood, learn to constantly negotiate our relationships with languages and positionalities within contentious language hierarchies. We become more aware of how colonial legacy in Taiwan and the United States have shaped our language attitude and choices. We intentionally unlearn colonial language ideologies and shame, and take actions to sustain our heritage languages and pass them on to our next generations as parents, educators, and researchers. By doing so, we advocate for multilingualism and sustainability through transnational and intergenerational language preservation and revitalization.
Huiyu: From Shame to Empowerment, My Journey of Embracing My Roots
Born in a rural village in Chiayi, Taiwan in the mid-1980s, my childhood memories were not without shame and struggles. I remember the time that I sat in the classrooms not understanding what the teachers were saying; I remember the moments that I felt embarrassed about my parents’ strong accents speaking Chinese Mandarin and lack of education. These memories remain vivid today, yet little did I know then that these experiences of mine are far from unique. In Taiwan, the Chinese Nationalist Language policies and the Han colonial-centered educational system have created ideological hierarchies that privileged Chinese Mandarin and framed Indigenous and other ethnic languages as informal, uneducated, and even uncivilized. Under this ideology, my family’s linguistic background and socioeconomic status fit perfectly into the definition. Just like many other kids from diverse ethnic groups in Taiwan, I internalized a sense of shame and believed that mastering Chinese Mandarin and performing well in school could change my social position.
As I later transitioned to the United States, I gradually understood my early decision to abandon my heritage language and the shame I carried was never truly mine. It was solely a product of colonization. Recognizing this has been challenging yet liberating. To me, the effort of reclaiming my mother tongue is not just a process of healing, but also an act of resistance and empowerment. My journey of language reclamation also lives in the way how my Peruvian-American partner and I raise our child in the United States. From our lived experiences, we have learned how much language carries and how it holds memory, culture, and identity. At home, we make an intentional effort to speak our languages to our child, weaving both of our roots into our everyday conversations. We have also been learning each other’s languages, not just as partners but as parents determined to bridge our worlds to the everyday life of our child. In doing so, we constantly remind ourselves that our Asian and Latino heritages are not burdens but sources of pride and strength to celebrate.
Yun-Pu: Keeping Multiple Languages Alive at Home
I’m a mother of two children, and they’re growing up in a multilingual household where Mandarin, English, and Pangcah/’Amis coexist, though in unequal ways. Each language carries different meanings and possibilities. Mandarin is the language my partner and I are most comfortable with – I’m Indigenous, yet Pangcah is not my mother tongue, and I remain a learner. English dominates our lives in the United States. In Taiwan, where I grew up, English was celebrated as the key to global connection and modernity. Because of Taiwan’s colonial history, my grandparents spoke Japanese (my grandmother was a Hakka), my parents shifted to Mandarin, and only in my generation has the possibility of language revitalization reemerged. My partner is not Indigenous, yet he wholeheartedly supports to learn Pangcah with our children.
Growing up, English was the language most admired. Fluency meant being smart and promising. My achievements in English granted me scholarships, work opportunities, and eventually higher education in the United States. I cannot deny that English opened many doors and gave me the privilege to move more freely in spaces. Some say these privileges came with a cost. Every hour devoted to perfecting English pulled me further away from the songs and stories of Pangcah. As an advocate for Indigenous rights, I wonder: must languages always compete with one another?
Dominant language has brought opportunities, but what sustains our identity is the coexistence of languages. For my children, this means growing up with English, Mandarin, and Pangcah woven together. At home, their listening skills may outpace speaking or writing, but every step of learning brings us closer. This effort is not just about preservation; it is resilience, resistance, and love. We affirm that our lives and cultures are richest when multiple voices thrive side by side.
Hsin-Jung: Finally Learning to Speak Again with All My Languages
My life-long linguistic tug of war reflects my constant identity negotiation within two countries heavily shaped by patriarchy, colonialism, and globalization–Taiwan and the US. Being the youngest child in a traditional Han Taiwanese family, before I voice my opinion, adults would often silence me with “Children only have ears but no mouths” (Gín-á-lâng ū-hīnn-bô-tshuì 囡仔人有耳無喙). So, I observed quietly how adults intentionally use languages to negotiate identities, powers, and emotional struggles. My grandmother sang Japanese lullabies nostalgically; my parents sang karaoke in Taiwanese Hokkien. Soon after my brother’s diagnosis of Schizophrenia, constant arguing began–often their strongest languages (e.g. my mother’s Taiwanese Hokkien and my grandma and dad’s Taiwanese Hakka, their “secret language”). Although “immersed” in multilingual code-switching and translanguaging, I was too traumatized to pick up either language. English learning eased my feeling of helpless voicelessness and kickstarted my language career. Without realizing the underlying colonial ideologies, I soon became a proud native-speaker-sounding English teacher immersed in Japanese anime and French movies. For years, I have ignored my growing awareness of how white-and-Eurocentric linguistic hierarchy oppresses my home languages and Indigenous communities’ languages, for fear of being silenced again. Not until PhD studies in the USA did I learn how Europe-US colonialism and imperialism contributed to white supremacy and English hegemony that resulted in global cultural erasure and genocide. Finally awakened to the harms I have imposed on my former English learners and my family, I was washed over by waves of guilt for uprooting myself from and despising my multi-lingual/cultural roots. Nowadays, carrying a load of homesickness, I call my parents and ask them to talk to me in Taiwanese Hakka and Hokkien. Although slowly and clumsily, I am finally learning to speak again with all my languages.
Conclusion
Our three stories collectively share both the challenges and resilience our multilingual and transnational families have demonstrated in preserving our heritage languages. Through walking the readers into our lived experiences marked by shame, struggles, and tension, we reveal the impact of colonial legacy. Despite these tensions, we hope our students and future generations are raised with the cultural capital of knowing that the more rooted in the local, the more global we become. Dominant languages may flow like powerful currents, yet as educators, parents, and researchers, we embrace our agency to advocate multilingualism intentionally. By knowing where we come from, carrying the roots and diversity of our cultures, we envision where to go.
Yun-Pu (also known as Margaret and with her Indigenous name, Nikal) is a PhD Candidate in Law at the University of Washington, focusing her research on Indigenous rights. Born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, she is a member of the Pangcah/’Amis Indigenous community and a mother of two, navigating the intersections of family, culture, and language. Her work seeks to bridge scholarship and community building, sustaining cultural roots while envisioning a future for the next generation.
Dr. Huiyu Lin earned her PhD at the College of Education at the University of Washington. Her research interests focus on Indigenous language reclamation and its association with Indigenous knowledge systems and epistemologies. Dr. Lin’s inquiry process centers on the Indigenous worldview and follows decolonizing methodologies grounded in Indigenous peoples’ intellectual sovereignty. Through her dissertation study, Dr. Lin not only introduces Indigenous resistance and community-led practices in a non-Western settler-colonial context but also advocates for the importance of Indigenous educational sovereignty.
Hsin-Jung Li: With 10 years of transnational EFL and ESL language teaching and 5 years of anti-racist and social justice-oriented elementary teacher education experiences, she continues to explore pedagogical theories, curriculum, and practices that are multilingual, culturally-sustaining, and racially literate to support young learners’ critical identity and literacy development in this diversifying world. Her doctoral dissertation explores how teacher educators can incorporate decolonial, anti-racist, and social justice-centered professional development to cultivate Chinese-speaking first-generation immigrant elementary teachers’ racial identity, literacy, and justice actions.