A Yonsei’s Heritage Language Learning Journey

This autoethnography chronicles my journey of learning Japanese as a heritage language (HL). Scholarship on Japanese HL learning has explored the challenges of HL learning for Japanese and Japanese Americans (JAs); however, little research was conducted on late-generation (third, fourth) JA learners, and particularly on “receptive learners.” 2 This autoethnography addresses these gaps by answering the question: what external (historical, societal) or internal (ethnic identity) factors influenced the loss or motivation to relearn my HL in the autoethnographer, a late-generation JA? Data were collected from my literacy narrative and pedagogical artifacts (e.g., journals, quizzes and assignments, etc.) from the Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL) courses I took, and analyzed thematically for influential factors and motivation patterns. Findings reveal that (1) racism and internment (as the historical and societal factors) and shame and the aspiration to reconnect with the heritage culture (as the internal factors) influenced my longitudinal course of learning Japanese; and (2) what motivated a late-generation JA to study my HL is not for professional reasons, as claimed in previous research, but to heal from a conflicted legacy and the desire to communicate orally with members of the heritage culture. However, my effort to realize these goals was thwarted by the curricular design of the JFL courses, which focused primarily on orthographic practices and insufficiently on oral proficiency, raising legitimate questions about the pedagogical appropriateness of JFL courses for HL learners.