Arak Journal

Subtractive Schooling, Linguistic Racism and Their Roles in Perpetuating Economic Inequalities Among Ethnic Minorities in Vietnam

By Giang Hoang Nguyen

So, when you speak in Hmong language, do people around you ask you about that?”

They did not know what language that was. They asked what language we were speaking, or whether we were talking bad about them. Now we try to limit our conversations in our own language?”
(Luong et al. 56). 

 
This heartfelt confession comes from an ethnic minority who forces himself into inhibition of his mother tongue for the sake of acceptance from his urban colleagues. Such an adaptation strategy points out the unequal linguistic dynamics in Vietnam in which the dominant language, Vietnamese, is favored at the expense of other minority languages. Despite boasting advocacy for diversity discourses, the Vietnamese government, in reality, enforces the state of linguistic hegemony by rolling out a variety of national language planning policies, including subtractive schooling designed for minority communities. After more than two decades of implementation, this pedagogy has stripped minority students of their rights to practice their heritage languages in academic environments, forcing them to assimilate into mainstream society, while singling them out for perpetual linguistic shaming. Thus, this paper seeks to examine the complex linguistic landscape of Vietnam and the lived experience of people who speak as marginalized subjects through educational, social and economic lenses.

On the surface, Vietnam is a homogeneous country with the dominant presence of one race – Asian. Yet, the country itself is multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual with 54 ethnic groups whose cultures, beliefs, religions, and even languages are vastly different. The Kinh people are considered to be the dominant group with 85.73% of nearly 90 million people identifying themselves as Kinh (United Nations Population Fund 10). Among the 53 remaining ethnicities, the most populous is the Tay numbering 1.84 million people, while the smallest ones, such as Br?u and ? u, totaling 400 to 600 each (?List of ethnic groups”). Most of these minority groups are concentrated in the Northern Mountains, Central Highlands, and the Southern lowlands, all of which are often remote from the fertile deltas of the Kinh people. This geographical isolation allows ethnic minorities to establish and preserve their distinctive languages handed down by their ancestors. Most of the languages and dialects remain oral and lack extensive research; only eleven groups having their unique writing systems (Hays). Meanwhile, the Kinh populations are articulate in the official language of Vietnam, Vietnamese, which is used in every aspect of economic, social, and political life. The dominance of one such language puts enormous pressure on minority groups to assimilate into the mainstream linguistic scene should they wish to be recognized as legitimate members of the society. This pressure eventually contributes to the current system of subtractive schooling aiming at providing standard Vietnamese education for minority students in the hope that they have better prospects of employment in the future. 

Despite such well-intentioned initiatives, which are intended to help ethnic minorities transition into mainstream society, the economic and social distance between the majority and the minority continues to exist. Ethnic minorities still constitute 86 percent of the remaining poor population in Vietnam (?Overview”). The average income of the Kinh people is often higher and can be twice as much as that of ethnic minorities in certain provinces, further pushing these vulnerable communities down the social ladder and raising concerns about their well-being (Singhal and Beck 4). Outrageous discrimination against people of ethnic minority descent is so rampant that derogatory remarks are made by word of mouth and displayed in various forms of videos, posts, and comments on social media platforms without check. To gain insights into the root causes of the current tilted ethnic dynamics, this paper examines the role of subtractive schooling and its consequence, linguistic racism, in driving the wealth gap between the majority and the minorities. In particular, the paper focuses on two interlinked matters: (1) the effects of subtractive schooling in further isolating minority students from the mainstream society in not only linguistic, but also cultural and social aspects, and (2) a positive relationship between linguistic racism and economic inequality.  

Looking back at history, the government of Vietnam has implemented a variety of policies to address their concerns on linguistic education for ethnic minorities. Article 15 in the 1964 Constitution, which expressed a favorable attitude towards multilingualism, wrote, in local primary schools, citizens of ethnic minorities shall have the right to be educated in their own language” (Lavoie 156). According to 2005 Education Law, the government shall facilitate minority language education for ethnic minorities in order to preserve and promote ethnic identity, assisting ethnic minorities in absorbing knowledge while studying in schools and other educational institutions” (Nguy?n and M?c). Simultaneously, the government also emphasizes the paramount importance of unity and general welfare, which can only be achieved by using a common language of Vietnamese (Lavoie 157). It is, thus, the civil responsibility” of each citizen, regardless of ethnicity, to be fluent in Vietnamese (157). In an attempt to enforce a one-nation-one-language agenda, the government has put forth two main initiatives: additive schooling and subtractive schooling.

Additive schooling is a pedagogy to achieve additive bilingualism” – a situation defined by Wallace Lambert in which the addition of a second language and culture are unlikely to replace or displace the first language and culture” (quoted in Pieper 66). To test out the effectiveness of additive schooling, the government rolled out bilingual education projects including one funded by UNICEF, World Bank and MoET (Ministry of Education and Training) in 2000 for primary students whose heritage language is J’rai (Lavoie 158). In these projects, minority languages are taught as a part of the standard curriculum alongside Vietnamese until grade 3, before transitioning to Vietnamese language teaching only (Nguyen and Hamid 143). Despite having proved to be beneficial to the overall linguistic development of minority students, these projects remain in pilot phase due to the lack of financial resources and the sheer number of minority languages (Nguyen and Hamid 143; Lavoi 158).

On the other hand, subtractive schooling, which refers to curriculum policies, processes, or practices that remove students’ culture or language from classroom contexts as a resource for learning or as a source of personal affirmation,” is more widely adopted in Vietnam (?Subtractive Education”, Asian Development Bank 29). Under such an assimilationist approach, young minority students are forced out of their comfort zone and submerged in a classroom where Vietnamese is the only language of instruction. They are expected to learn a completely new language and practice the manners of the majority even in the absence of Kinh students in the class. This hegemonic pedagogy discounts their limited exposure to the mainstream cultures before attending schools, which poses serious challenges to their learning process and eventually results in the misdiagnosis of their language proficiency as slow, incapable, or inferior in some cases. When coupled with perennial prejudices against ethnic minorities as a whole, this assimilationist pedagogy inadvertently contributes to a persistent 10 percentage point difference in lower secondary education and 30 percentage difference in higher secondary education between minority and majority students (Dang and Glewwe 1179).

For minority students, oral and writing fluency in mother tongue can provide important transferable skills to successfully acquire a second language (Wright et al. 65). The benefits range from a strong foundation of linguistic abilities and social awareness to cognitive advantages, such as auditory attention and task-switching capabilities regardless of ages (Shook and Marian 3). This notion is corroborated by the Threshold” theory, first put forth by Toukoma and Skutnabb-Kangas in 1977. The theory posits that there may in fact be certain thresholds of language proficiency that students must reach in order to experience cognitive benefits of bilingualism, especially in areas related to educational success” (Menken and Kleyn 401). In other words, there is an interdependence between fluency of first and second languages. According to the results of a bilingual education project funded by the World Bank, UNICEF and MoET (Ministry of Education and Training) in Vietnam in 2000, if allowed to continue learning in their first and second languages, minority primary school students are not only able to progress academically using their mother tongue, but they are able to transition to Vietnamese by Grade 5, outperforming their Kinh peers on every level” (Lavoie 158). Thus, it is of utmost importance that minority students are given the opportunity to broaden their native linguistic skills, both spoken and written, should they want to master Vietnamese and thrive in any learning environment in the future.

Yet, minority languages still largely remain invisible in the current system of subtractive schooling as instructions, textbooks, and communication are conducted entirely in Vietnamese. Even though there have been attempts to translate standard textbooks into minority languages, they are largely limited efforts of non-profit and private organizations, rather than a long-term invested campaign by the government. Then, what about teachers? Aren’t they supposed to understand their students’ linguistic struggles and assist them in the learning process? Sadly, it is not the case. Asian Development Bank (10) shows that there is a shortage of qualified teachers in each province occupied by ethnic minorities, not to mention ones with minority language proficiency (Giacchino-baker 172). In an interview conducted in six provinces with high populations of ethnic minorities, villagers all expressed their concerns for the critical lack of teachers who can understand their children’s languages and cultures,” especially in the Northern Mountain area (173). Even if teachers can provide explanations in native languages, they only help students grasp the meanings of the dominant language, rather than build upon the command of their mother tongues.  As a result, minority students have little chance to practice heritage languages, risking eroding their native language proficiency. Besides, subtractive schooling also hinders the progress in learning a second language. Minority students’ weak linguistic repertoires have been proven to decrease their ability to understand increasingly complex instruction and benefit from their schooling” (Cummins). In this case, minority students see a greater rate of dropout and lower rate of completing higher education compared to Kinh majority (United Population Funds in Vietnam 1-2, United Nations Population Fund 30-31). Thus, rather than being inclusive, subtractive schooling forces minority students into assimilation without tailoring to their needs, leaving them further behind. 

More than two decades of submersion education has left indelible and far-reaching effects on perceptions of the Kinh majority about their minority brothers and sisters. Subtractive schooling creates a one-dimensional environment in which Vietnamese is the only acceptable language and Kinh-centric ideas are the foremost values in society; any deviation from the norm is considered undervalued. According to Weber (2015, quoted in Dovchin 774), once minorities’ linguistic practices are perceived as inferior” form of language use, their sociolinguistic status is also depicted in a bad light, thus rationalizing linguistic racism among the majority group. The term linguistic racism” or linguicism” refers to the ideologies, structures and practices which are used to legitimate, effectuate, regulate and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources (both material and immaterial) between groups which are defined on the basis of language” (Skutnabb-Kangas 41 ).  This concept proposes a new type of discrimination that is based on ethno-racial status and linguistic practices, thus applying to the case of Vietnamese ethnic minorities. As suggested by Dovchin (806), ethnic minority groups experience linguistic racism through the implicit form of linguistic stereotyping” and the explicit form of ethnic accent bullying”. The former hinges on preconceived notions of one’s linguistic fluency based on one’s ethnic features (807). This has proved to be a case in point with the problematic stereotype of minorities as being backward and undeveloped. It stems from the misconception that ethnic people are not as smart as Kinh people because they dress in old-fashioned” clothes, fail to speak Vietnamese fluently and refuse to adopt civilized” practices in daily life. Without even considering the fact that each ethnicity, regardless of being majority or minority, has its own traditional costumes, cultures, religions and even genetics, Kinh people let their insular judgements profoundly influence the characterization of ethnic minorities, thus perpetuating distorted myths about this vulnerable population.

While linguistic stereotyping” mostly revolves around subconscious judgments of ethnic minorities’ abilities, ethnic accent bullying” comes in the explicit forms of verbal abuse including mocks, slurs, and diatribes (Dovchin 807). These verbal attacks targeted ethnic minorities aim to ridicule their ethnic accents and dialects, which are vastly different throughout the North, the Middle, and the South of Vietnam. An ethnic accent, as common as it is, elicits biased assumptions of one’s linguistic competency as well as social status. While a standard Vietnamese accent is associated with high intellectual capabilities and respected social standing, an ethnic or foreign accent and dialect is deemed unconventional and less prestigious. As a result, ethnic minorities are often called with demeaning and insulting labels which are intended to magnify the inherent differences between them and someone from the majority group. Even worse, those verbal attacks are so common that people may not even be aware of their existence. For example, if an ethnic minority speaker shows his or her fluent command of Vietnamese, he or she will receive backhand compliments such as your Vietnamese is so good considering you are an ethnic minority” or your parents must have worked hard so that you can go to schools and speak such natural Vietnamese.”

The abovementioned subtle and explicit forms of linguistic racism bring about severely negative psychological and emotional impacts on minority groups. Some are hesitant to use their mother tongues for fear of being different” or the other.” Indeed, Stebih (29) made an observation about Tia – her 6-year-old daughter who was born in Slovenia to a Slovenian family and went to kindergarten in Canada. She noticed Tia’s increasing ease with speaking English as well as struggle to remember certain words in her mother tongue. This could be attributed to her desire to befriend her mainstream friends and teachers. Similar to Tia, minority students, when placed in an unfamiliar linguistic environment, will try to conceal their differences and assimilate into the mass by practicing the dominant language. As such, minority students will most likely undergo an identity crisis in which they question the validity of their ethnic identity in an alien setting. Since identity can be expressed through languages, low frequency of using native languages also means that they are trying to distance themselves from their ethnic identity and construct a separate one that is deemed to be fit in the dominant culture (Nguyen and Hamid 145, Wright et al. 65). This proves to be the case for Vietnamese ethnic minorities who attend schools in urban areas where the majority of students are Kinh people. One anonymous undergraduate recounted feeling embarrassed” when his friends asked him if his people still practice dark magic. (VnExpress). Another one expressed low self-esteem, sharing that my parents and friends told me to not tell anyone that I am a Hmong” and I don’t want to [hide my identity] but if they know that I am an ethnic minority, they will look down on me” (Luong et al. 56-57). When asked about her feelings towards being a Tay ethnic minority, a 16-year-old interviewee said, I don’t know how I can define what being an ethnic Tay means, because I never know how being an ethnic Tay actually is” (60). These personal examples have clearly shown how social pressure can lead to linguistic subordination among ethnic minorities, forcing them to make a choice not for their own sake, but for the expectations of the majority people surrounding them.

This last insight raises a question for us: What is the impact of linguistic racism on economic development of ethnic minorities? To effectively address this tough question, we need to understand the difference in income sources of the majority and minority. As Vietnam is transitioning from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, there have been structural labor shifts away from agriculture to the industrial sector (Cling et al. 3). As a result, there is also a shift in income sources as wages, defined as salary or wage payments plus additional payments such as bonuses and allowances for all jobs,” (Tran 4) constitute a larger percentage in total income of households (Cling et al. 3). However, this trend is much more significant in majority people’s households than those of ethnic minorities whose main income is still crop-based. In particular, while wage and agriculture incomes accounted for nearly 50% and 40% respectively of Kinh-headed household incomes, those of minority households are 20% and 70% respectively (Pham et al. 14). At the same time, the share of crop-based income is also observed to be larger among the extreme poor than the non-poor due to differences in rate of participation in wage employment and amount of wages (Tran 7). As a result, it is no surprise that ethnic minorities tend to be less financially developed than the majority.

In a way, both subtractive schooling and linguistic racism can be attributed to inequality in access to non-farming opportunities among ethnic minorities. For these job seekers, limited language competency and a low rate of higher education completion prove to be huge disadvantages, especially in comparison with majority applicants. As detailed above in the analysis of submersion education, the assimilationist approach negatively impacts the fluency of both first and second languages and wrongly assess academic abilities of ethnic minorities. With no accommodation being made for the special needs of ethnic minority students, the stigma against their intellectual capabilities continues to linger and even extend to their employability. To make matters worse, recruiters, who are mostly from the majority background, have a propensity to develop an internalized bias against minority candidates, even when they show adequate linguistic fluency and qualifications.  Should ethnic minority candidates using impression management tactics, defined as attempts to form a favorable impression on other people, that diverge from the common or preferred ones by ethnic majority recruiters may have lower interview ratings than their ethnic minority counterparts who comply with their expected impression management tactics (Gwal 38; Derous 12). In the absence of impression management tactics, ethnic minorities still face a high chance of being rejected for it signals a low level of assimilation” and an outgroup status” of applicants, especially if recruiter’s perceptions are taken into consideration (Derous 13).  For instance, Turkish immigrant candidates who demonstrated close affiliation with their native cultures were assigned slightly lower hirability ratings by Norwegian employers than assimilated Turkish immigrant candidates (Horverak et al. 55-56). In the case of Vietnam, deep-seated prejudices against ethnic minorities as shown in the abovementioned part about linguistic racism has led to biased decision-making among majority recruiters. As a result, ethnic minorities have little chance of gaining access to jobs outside the agriculture sector, further isolating them in the labor market and driving the wealth gap between them and Kinh people. This conclusion is consistent with the findings of Nguyen et al. (160) about ethnic poverty, claiming that either the special educational needs of minority children are not being addressed in classrooms, or unequal treatment in favor of the majority exists in the labor market”.

In conclusion, this paper has taken a close look at the intersectionality of subtractive schooling, linguistic racism and economic inequality among ethnic minorities in Vietnam. It finds that by granting the ethnic majority linguistic privileges, the Vietnamese government has deprived 53 remaining ethnic minorities of socio-economic and socio-cultural opportunities that could have lifted them out of chronic poverty. The practices of linguistic racism and linguistic gatekeeping have rendered these communities even more vulnerable, further isolating them from mainstream society. Thus, it is of paramount importance that we craft community-centric pedagogical, social and economic initiatives for ethnic minorities for the sake of our general well-being. Most importantly, we need to ask ourselves: Will we be content with seeing our brothers and sisters’ entitlements and basic rights being denied merely because of our linguistic difference

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Paper Prompt

This project will be based on a community problem you will select. The problem should not be broad and generic; rather, it should be specific enough and highly focused. You’ll dissect and probe the roots of the problem. Necessary help will be given to you to select the issue you deeply care about. The genre of this project will be an argumentative essay.

What do I mean by an argumentative essay? It means that your essay must have an argument or claim, which you want to corroborate by employing evidence, research, examples, and deep analysis. A few examples of argumentative essay genres are academic research essay, research analysis paper, podcast, video essay, etc. But for this project you will select the academic research essay genre (though you’ll have the option to add image, video, charts, etc.), which is the genre you’ll most likely write during your college career. For better understanding of what I mean by argumentative essay, check this article from Purdue OWL.

Here are the salient features of the project:

• Word count: 2000-2400 words; you can go over the max word limit if you want to.
• Grade: 35% or 350 points
• Theme: Focus on the PROBLEM for this essay; you’re not required to suggest a solution which you’ll write about in project 2
• Evidence: You will have the option to incorporate a wide range of evidence in the form of personal story, stats/data, scholarly insights, charts, archival material, interview, multimedia (audio, video, images, etc), or social media content.
• Minimum required sources: 10 credible sources and at least 2 of them need to be peer-reviewed scholarly sources; to learn the difference between popular and scholarly sources please use the guidelines provided by the UC Berkeley’s library.
• Citation style: You can use MLA or APA citation style in your paper. Make sure that you add BOTH in-text citations and a properly formatted bibliography to your paper. By in-text citation I mean the sources you mention in parenthesis in the body of your essay and bibliography is the “Works Cited” section at the end of your paper. For MLA citations, this guide can be very useful. For APA citations, use this guide.
• Submission: All submissions will be done via Canvas.
• Avoid long direct quotes unless necessary. Use paraphrasing instead.