Factors Influencing Multicultural Adolescents’ Bilingual Loss and Vietnamese Ethnic Identity Crisis

Abstract

The number of interracial marriages between Korean men and Vietnamese women has been rising, and these international marriages lead to an increase in the number of mixed-race children. The existence of interracial marriage receives significant concern from social scholars as members from cultural backgrounds are likely to become the vulnerable objects of social isolation and discrimination. Generally, although being born in multicultural families, mixed-race children tend to strongly identify themselves as member of dominant communities and adopt only the host country’s language. This research aims at figuring out the factors leading to the intention not to practice bilingual and maintain Vietnamese ethnic identity for biracial adolescents of migrant marriage women. The research mainly uses mixed methods in data collection and analysis. The in-depth interviews were conducted on 13 participants (including 8 Vietnamese mothers and 5 Korean-Vietnamese children), and there were 50 participants in the questionnaire survey. Through interview content and data analysis, the research tends to illustrate the internal and external reasons causing limitation in bilingual education and ethnic identity maintaining. Based on the research result, it suggests some recommendations to improve the life of multicultural children and create for them a healthy environment to grow up.