Chinese American Students Fight for Their Rights

Parental and community involvement play a key role in the Chinese American students' fight for their rights. In order to understand the reasons behind the parental and community support of Chinese students, a survey was conducted among Chinese parents to assess what they know about language loss, power, knowledge, and democracy. The results demonstrate that Chinese parents know what is valuable to their children's education; that Chinese parents know the importance of having their culture represented among school teachers, administrators, and board members and the importance of fighting for power; and that those Chinese students made the right decision to fight for their right to study Chinese as a foreign language. To examine this issue, it is necessary to position it within the existing research literature. The authors review literature on knowledge, power, language, and democracy to help in understanding why these students fought for their right to learn Chinese and why that action failed. The findings from the survey are discussed in light of the current knowledge base. (Contains 1 table and 1 note.)