Heritage language - readings

I read this linguistics paper from Harvard called Heritage languages: In the 'Wild' and in the classroom by Maria Polinsky and Olga Kagan. It's very interesting because it kind of covers the bases of heritage languages and what they are, and how every heritage speaker is different from the other, and then raises some questions about how to teach heritage speakers in the classroom. Some screenshots I took:

This is very relevant for Chinese, too –– Cantonese/Toisanese and Hokkien/Teochew, and other language speakers being sidelined with the worrying dominance of Mandarin both in China and in the diaspora, with more and more mainland immigrants who are often much more rich than the previous "waves" of immigration. Yet many diasporic are expected to speak Mandarin –– as Rey Chow called it, the "white man's Chinese"

This is the biggest problem with diasporic heritage speakers trying to learn their language. A foreigner is congratulated for every little skill, but, especially in the eyes of native speakers, heritage speakers just appear lacking. There's a lot of feelings of shame associated with this, and I often feel a little embarrassed to be seeking out ways to learn Chinese because people can be really condescending.

I didn't really get all the linguistics technical parts but I'm glad heritage speakers are being studied. It's cool.