When addressing many social issues, “positive” preconceptions of certain minority groups can be just as injurious as negative preconceptions. This literature review compares/contrasts the effects language broking has on adolescent Asian-Americans and Mexican-Americans based on NES (Native English Speaker) perceived ethnic bias.
Keywords: Language Broker, sociolinguistics, Asian-American, Mexican-American, mental health, immigrant, family, bilingual
Language brokering: An immigrant parent’s solution
It is often the case that immigrant parents with beginning English proficiency encounter scenarios in which their native language is not spoken or understood. In such situations, a parent is likely to look for a quick solution that offers little resistance and comes at no cost. Luckily for them, they have an accessible, bilingual interpreter living right underneath their own roof: their child. Because of this logic, children of A1 (Beginner) English proficiency parents become a human resource that can be brought along to every tax meeting, doctor’s visit, or similar scenario that requires a higher level of English comprehension. This is the life of a language broker: a child or adolescent who is tasked as the household multilingual communicator for their family. At first glance, a native English-speaking American might perceive this idea as logical or efficient, but often the result of language brokering has undesirable impacts on students’ socioemotional health.
Before analyzing the differences between how Asian-American and Mexican-American adolescents are affected by language brokering, I’d first like to share a segment from “Intersectionality in Interaction: Immigrant Youth Doing American from an Outsider-Within Position” by Hyeyoung Kwon (2015), the resource that inspired my initial research into the relationship between the act of language brokering and individual emotional health. Kwon posits that, due to issues of racialized nativism and race-related power dynamics, adolescent language brokers of all heritages “perform” American behaviors in order to gain social capital and avoid discriminatory encounters. Because of the aversive strength of these discriminatory encounters, when students are forced into a session of language brokering that they do not wish to engage with, they employ strategies that are counter-assimilation (Kwon, 2015). In short, these adolescents pretend to be more American in order to avoid the primary harm of language brokering: discrimination. Based on Kwon, this exaggerated American character is injurious to second-generational students who ‘feel’ plenty American and hold American ideals, but are treated as non-natives due to their accent or skin color.
Effects on Mexican-American language brokers
The impact of language brokering on Mexican-American youths’ socioemotional health is multifaceted. In “Language Brokering and Depressive Symptoms in Mexican-American Adolescents: Parent-Child Alienation and Resilience as Moderators,” by Kim, Hou and Gonzalez (2017), the authors compare how the recombinations of depressive symptoms, alienation, resilience and efficacy correlate within low-income, low-education Mexican-American households. The study shows that when students feel as though they are interpreting poorly (low efficacy), they have a higher probability of demonstrating depressive symptoms and alienating themselves from their parents. These low-efficacy students also reported that the burden of interpreting continued to encourage the same parent-child alienation. However, students of high efficacy reported as having lower depressive symptoms and a better language brokering relationship with their parents (Kim et al., 2017).
Similarly, in a 2024 study by Kim et al. titled, “Daily and ethnic discriminatory experiences and cognitive control in Mexican-origin bilingual language brokers,” it was found that, when encountering a discriminatory experience, cognitive control performance, a metric of brain functionality, was lower in students who reported as having moderate or ambivalent efficacy (Kim et al., 2024). However, yet again, students who reported as efficacious demonstrated a better performance on cognitive control performance testings. Results concluded that, while other explanations can be offered, there is evidence that cognitive performance can be jointly influenced by discriminatory experiences (Kim et al., 2024). Overall, the outcomes of externalized problems fostered by language brokering in Mexican-American adolescents can be traced directly to their own sense of self-efficacy. Beginner English proficiency levels show us higher chances of negative emotional and familial health, where more advanced English levels show us greater resilience, higher quality parent-child relationships and higher potential academic achievement.
Effects on Asian-American language brokers
Asian-Americans adolescents, on the other hand, do not experience less negative socioemotional impacts when engaging in language brokering, even though they hold the title of “model minorities,” (Kwon, 2015, p. 631), a minority group that is stereotyped as higher-achieving and less violent towards the majority population. A stark example comes from “The hidden injury of class in Korean-American language brokers’ lives,” in which Hyeyoung Kwon explores the hidden injury, a wound felt by Korean-American language brokers that keeps them tied to the working class, similar to their parents (Kwon, 2014). The author found that, based on interviews with Korean-American students in LA whose parents work low-income service jobs, children often perpetuate the same struggles they are attempting to overcome for their family by taking on the role of lingual intermediaries. Topics that are usually veiled from young adults are now the center of their responsibility (Kwon, 2014): paying mounting bills, communicating medical tragedies and mediating workplace conflicts to name a few. This injury operates in conflict with the model minority status of Asian-Americans, who are typically perceived as a primarily middle-class people group (Kwon, 2015).
The emotional internalization and behavioral externalization of these problems is studied in “Language brokering and adjustment among Chinese and Korean American adolescents: A modern mediation model of perceived maternal sacrifice, respect for the mother, and mother–child open communication” (Shen et al., 2014). The article compares the rate of adolescent internalized/externalized problems against the perception of mothers’ sacrifice. The researchers found that the higher the perceived sacrifice of mothers, such as working long hours for little pay, the lower the rates of externalized problems, such as defiance, being reported. Convexly, the same thing was not true for internalized problems such as low self-esteem and depression. It was shown that higher rates of internalized issues rose from students who had a perception of high maternal sacrifice. Overall, this led the authors to the conclusion that language brokering effects are not always negative, and that there are conditional indirect mechanisms through which positive developmental outcomes may result for Asian American language brokers (Shen et al., 2014).
Are experiences different based on heritage?
In the minds of native English speakers born in America, Mexican-Americans and Asian-Americans hold different characteristics of class, morality and assailability. While Mexican-Americans are often seen as working-class, less desirable immigrants, Asian-Americans are seen as a primary middle-class, strongly assimilable people group (Kwon, 2015). Based on this assumption, it would be natural to believe that the average discriminatory experience while language brokering would be more negative for Mexican-American adolescents while being more positive for Asian-American adolescents. However, based on the conclusions of the studies, this is not the case. It was shown that, regardless of social bias, Mexican-Americans and Asian-Americans still suffered significant socioemotional impacts when acting as ineffective language brokers. However, the findings were not all negative.
The main driving factors of a positive language brokering experience lie in the efficacy of the child and the strength of the discriminatory encounter. In all cases studied, students who held higher English proficiency incurred less emotional injury than those who had lower English proficiency. It was also shown that the quality of the language brokering experience was not only in the hands of the student, but also in the hands of the native English speaker. Minority children who interacted with interlocutors that did not demonstrate high rates of racialized nativism held, across the board, lower negative impact on the broker (Kwon, 2015).
Final considerations
Based on the findings, a few solutions can be proposed to diminish the probability of harmful effects from language brokering. First would be to build awareness of those potential negative effects on those in multilingual households. Often harm caused to children by their parents is not intentional and, when brought to the adult’s attention, those behaviors can be corrected. Informing other community members, such as teachers and administrators, could also generate avenues of support for students that were previously unavailable due to this lack of awareness. Supports such as smart scheduling for multi-lingual mediators during parent-teacher meetings or modern translation devices would lower the need to use the student as a human resource, potentially lowering strain.
Second, the research shows that students with higher English efficacy have lower instances of emotional injury due to language brokering. Building efficacy in formal educational settings gives students resilience against the negative impacts of discriminatory practices. This could come in many forms, such as in- and out-of-classroom roleplay activities or lesson units that build and emulate English-speaking encounters that students might find themselves in. Confident students, even when acting as an English resource to their parents, feel less impact from the potential negatives of representing their multi-lingual family.
Lastly, teaching students about the types of people and scenarios they might encounter outside of a formal educational setting could better prepare them against discriminatory interactions. It is nearly impossible to completely protect multicultural children from facing discrimination, but exposing them to model scenarios in a safe environment could better prepare them for independent practice. Similar awareness programming for subjects such as bullying and drug abuse exists in public systems, so I find it likely that, given funding and district interest, a similar program could be built that supports students’ transition to out-of-school practice.
Overall, while Mexican-American and Asian-American adolescents experience different types of emotional injury from discriminative language brokering experiences, the encounters are still often perceived as negative. Many minorities of low efficacy face similar treatment and have similar socioemotional outcomes based on their experiences as language brokers. Solutions to the problem, such as awareness building and ELD subject development, are both cost-effective and accessible to most public education systems.
References
Kim, S. Y., Hou, Y., & Gonzalez, Y. (2017). Language brokering and depressive symptoms in Mexican-American adolescents: Parent-child alienation and resilience as moderators. Child Development, 88(3), 867-881. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12620
Kim, S. Y., Yan, J., Wen, W., Song, J., Chen, S., Zhang, M., Lopez, B. G., Arredondo, M. M., Gleason, M. E. J., & Ip, K. I. (2024). Daily and ethnic discriminatory experiences and cognitive control in Mexican-origin bilingual language brokers. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 27(7), 978-992. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2024.2308663
Kwon, H. (2014). The hidden injury of class in Korean-American language brokers’ lives. Childhood, 21(1), 56-71. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568213483597
Kwon, H. (2015). Intersectionality in interaction: Immigrant youth doing American from an outsider-within position. Social Problems, 62(4), 623-641. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spv019
Shen, Y., Kim, S. Y., Wang, Y., & Chao, R. K. (2014). Language brokering and adjustment among Chinese and Korean American adolescents: A moderated mediation model of perceived maternal sacrifice, respect for the mother, and mother–child open communication. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 5(2), 86-95. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035203
