California runs short of accredited Asian-language teachers – Asian American students pay the price

Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service

Vietnamese and Mandarin were the second and third most spoken languages in California.

There is a dramatic shortage of accredited dual-immersion language teachers in California – a problem that significantly limits education options for Asian language speaking students. Advocates call for a one-time funding package of $5 million to address the shortage at the EMS briefing on June 6.  According to the California Department of Education, more than 1,000 bilingual accreditations were issued in the 2019-2020 school year. The total number of K-12 teachers accredited in Asian languages added up to 93.

Dual-immersion language programs not only benefit immigrant children who can learn English concurrently with their native tongue, but also native English speakers who want to acquire a second language and understand another culture, an opportunity that advocates say is even more critical during the rise in attacks on Asians in recent years.

The $5 million funding is being requested by State Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, who chairs the state legislature’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus. Pan noted that the state has responded to anti-Asian incidents with last year’s passage of the $166.5 million API Equity Budget, which funds anti-bias education and the tracking of anti-AAPI hate crimes. But, he added, fighting discrimination needs to be approached from even more angles, such as teaching Asian languages.

Recalling his own experience as an elementary school student who could only speak Mandarin, Pan said that, like so many ESL students, he would have developed more confidence and progress with a bilingual teacher. He added that the linguistic barrier that puts immigrant children at a great disadvantage also negatively affects their mental health.

Victoria Dominguez, policy director at Advancing Justice – Los Angeles, said that there is a psychological component to introducing multilingual studies at a young age, saying that “when we are exposed to other communities, other cultures, and other languages, literally, our brain rewires in a different way that allows us to be more empathetic.

The $5 million would be allocated over four years to California State University’s Asian Language Bilingual Teacher Education Program Consortium, which is spread across 10 campuses and is focused on increasing the number of accredited bilingual teachers in six Asian languages: Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Japanese, Hmong, Korean and Vietnamese.