Chinese Students in Canadian Higher Education: A Case for Reining in Our Use of the Term “Generation 1.5”

Abstract

Roberge defines the 1.5 Generation as “those who immigrate as young children and have life experiences that span two or more countries, cultures and languages” (2009, p. 4). In US and Canadian higher education, the term has gained considerable recognition, with the scope of the term broadening among some educators to include bi/multilingual students in general. In this article, we present selected data on students of Chinese ethnicity (322 survey respondents and three interviewees) from a broader two-year study of the languages, literacies, and identities of multilingual undergraduate students in Vancouver, where, in the 2011 census, one in five of the people living in the city reported being of Chinese ethnicity (Statistics Canada, 2011). Our aim was to analyze how key social, cultural, and linguistic defining features of the term Generation 1.5 that we found in the literature were represented in participants’ survey and interview responses to open questions about their languages and identities. Five themes emerged: (a) being foreign-born and finishing secondary school in Canada, (b) being an international student, (c) being somewhere in between here and there, (d) (in)competence and language use, and (e) perceiving deficit in cultural knowledge. Participants’ responses illustrated complex, transnational interweavings of languages, identities, and literacies around these five themes, leading us to question our institutional use of the homogeneous term Generation 1.5 to describe a heterogeneous group of multilingual, transnational students of Chinese ethnicity.