Breaking Our Silence: A Qualitative Study of Chinese-Speaking First-Generation Immigrant Elementary Teachers’ Life Histories and Development in Identity, Literacy, and Justice Pedagogy

Abstract

“Silence on Race” has been a prevalent, transnational, yet understudied phenomenon among families, schools, and societies. Within the scholarship on U.S. teachers’ “Silence on Race,” there is limited exploration of how Chinese-speaking first generation immigrant elementary teachers’ (CSFGIETs) intergenerational, transnational, and ongoing ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) and racial identity, literacy, and justice pedagogy developmental trajectories have contributed to their (sustaining or disrupting their) “Silence on Race.” Hence, this dissertation pieced together fragmented scholarship on Asian immigrant/American teachers’ “Silence on Race,” Han-supremacist and White-supremacist monolingual/cultural/racial ideologies and practices, Asian immigrant/American youths’ and young adults’ racialized acculturation process, linguistic-and-racial-justice oriented teacher education training, and the white-and-English dominant prek-12 contexts to paint a hypothetical picture of CSFGIETs’ ERS exposure and racial development trajectories from birth to present. To study the relationships between CSFGIETs’ ERS exposure and racial development, I formed a theoretical framework based on the ERS scholarship-identified five approaches with my addition of “Silence on Race” as the sixth approach, Dr. Janet E. Helms’ racial identity development models and seven schemas, and Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s racial literacy development model. Through this theoretical framework, I reviewed existing scholarship to note that CSFGIETs may have been exposed to hegemonic ERS ideologies and practices in both their countries of origin (i.e. China or Taiwan) and host country (i.e. the US) (Han-supremacist and White-supremacist respectively) to start with a pre-determined ethnic-racial identity (i.e. Han Chinese/Taiwanese Yellow Race) and began navigating changing linguistic-cultural-racial-professional identities and positionalities after their U.S. immigration, joining TEP, and joining prek-12 teaching force. Due to scarce scholarship focusing on CSFGIETs and their transnational and ongoing ERS exposure and racial development, their literature-informed trajectories remain hypothetical and in need of corroboration. Therefore, I designed a qualitative comparative case study that adopts purposive sampling (i.e. recruiting four CSFGIETs–teacher candidates originating from China or Taiwan who I formerly coached–as research participants) and multiple data collection methods and data sources (semi-structured interviews, artifacts, participant and non-participant observations) across a five-year timeframe (2021-2026). I conducted two rounds of data analysis through the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to identify and discuss how patterns in their CSFGIETs’ ERS exposure within and across cases sustained racial structures and influenced their racial development. With a deep focus on the four CSFGIETs’ life histories, this dissertation findings bring light to their diverse and nuanced ERS exposure and racial identity, literacy, and justice pedagogy development–seldom heard stories as counternarratives to challenge anti-Asian racial stigmas that have long dehumanized and essentialized them. Their struggles in navigating the conflicting ERS messages and developing racial identity, literacy, and justice pedagogy further inform future teacher education in better supporting emergent linguistic and racial justice educators. This dissertation offered racial justice TEPs and teacher educators insights into how they can combat transnational racism and the pervasive “Silence on Race” forces/messages by designing and incorporating linguistically, ethnic-racially, and developmentally responsive teacher training to elicit TCs’ ERS and racial development trajectories/life histories and adopt critical ERS approaches to break their collective “Silence on Race” to advance TCs’ ongoing development in racial identity, literacy, and justice pedagogy.