Transmigrant identities and attitudes: the case of a Pangasinan-American family

2.1 Diasporic communities: identity negotiations and language attitudes

We understand diaspora as the “processes of dispersion and displacement where migrants relocate themselves in a new country in which they build a new imagined community” (Anderson 1991, as cited in Gubitosi and de Oliveira 2020: 89). These communities are not static, but rather evolving groups whose language(s) and cultural traditions are frequently endangered by the majority population of the new country (Ladilova 2015). Given that language serves as a means through which identity self-conceptions are conveyed (Bucholtz and Hall 2005), that is, language is a salient marker that indexes a particular culture (Gubitosi and García Frazier 2012), the analysis of the language practices of diasporic groups is crucial in order to understand how these speakers enact and negotiate their complex identities as they establish and settle in a new space. Since identity is “an interactional accomplishment, produced and negotiated in discourse” (Pavlenko and Blackledge 2004: 13), immigrants’ are encouraged to shift across various boundaries through language choices, creating new identities or assimilating to the host society (Itakura and Humphreys 2008). Therefore, understanding the relationship between ethnic identity and language is crucial in understanding how minority groups build their notion of community based on language, culture, and identity (Fishman et al. 1985).

Language attitudes, understood as evaluative reactions towards languages and their speakers (Garrett et al. 2003), are a crucial aspect that can be partly responsible for the positive and/or negative relationships in the diaspora. According to Edwards (1982), language attitudes reflect social conventions and preferences, indicating awareness of the status and prestige attributed to these varieties. Positive beliefs towards a linguistic variety lead to acceptance and usage. Negative attitudes towards the minority language and culture can cause cultural alienation, and consequently, language loss (Gubitosi and De Oliveira 2020). Diasporic communities often idealize their cultural artifacts and ethnic characteristics, which allows them to distance themselves from their home culture and (re)produce their imagined community (Gubitosi and De Oliveira 2020) as shown in previous research in the Portuguese diaspora in Rhode Island, US (Gubitosi and De Oliveira 2020), the Colombian diaspora in Catalonia, Spain (Patiño-Santos 2015), and the Puerto Rican diaspora in Western Massachusetts, US (Arias Álvarez 2020).

As a unit, family is observed as “porous, open to influences and interests from other broader social forces and institutions” (Canagarajah 2008: 171). Families who live in the diaspora tend to resolve communication issues, “encouraging their children to use all their linguistic abilities in everyday contexts, rather than compelling them to be loyal to the perceived authentic and purity norms of the language they spoke in their place of origin” (Arias Álvarez and Gubitosi 2020: 17). Language purity, then, loses relevance in a context wherein its members are adapting to a new spatial reality given that the notion of returning to the home community becomes less viable (Canagarajah 2019). As Gubitosi and De Oliveira state (2020), such individuals must find a way to harmonize their daily routines in unfamiliar surroundings and seek out locations that reflect their cultural and linguistic characteristics. This enables diasporic individuals to experience a sense of belonging even when they are far from their place of origin. In this view, then, when immigrants acquire a second, third, fourth, and so on language in the host society, they have multiple ways to convey their layered identities through translanguaging practices (García and Li 2014), which are dynamic language practices used in multilingual situations (Shin 2018).

Though there is research on the linguistic identities of diasporic communities (Canagarajah 2008, 2019; Gubitosi and De Oliveira 2020) and identity negotiation in the host society (Niño Murcia and Rothman 2008), there has been limited research on the construction of linguistic identities among migrant families (Arias Álvarez and Gubitosi 2020; Capobianco 2022; Ellis and Sims 2022; Fritzler 2023; King 2013; Park 2008; von Essen 2023). Park (2008) examines the intergenerational transmission of cultural values in Korean American families through the analysis of the verb suffix -ta. King (2013) analyzes identity construction among three transnational Ecuadorian-US sisters. Data were collected through informal interviews, audio recordings of home conversations, and participant observation. Arias Álvarez and Gubitosi (2020) use sociolinguistic interviews, as well as an ethnolinguistic observation, to examine identity negotiations in a Galician-Asturian migrant multilingual family in Asturias, Spain. Their findings illustrate how three generations of a family use translanguaging practices as a strategy to construct their complex and layered identities to avoid feelings of alienation. Capobianco (2022) finds, through ethnographic vignettes of African families in Japan, that the affective elements that shape parents’ language use and the role of child agency are instrumental in shaping family language outcomes. Ellis and Sims (2022), based on the context of New South Wales, Australia, expounds about the connection between family language policy and the parent’s linguistic identity, and how it is put into practice in relation to the parent’s goal regarding their child’s language development and emerging linguistic identity. Fritzler (2023) provides a comprehensive investigation of language practices and identity in the Spanish-speaking community in Israel. By means of individual interviews with family members, results show that a primary driver for these Spanish-speaking families is their interest and emotional need to preserve their language.

The aforementioned studies show how language plays a pivotal role in shaping and negotiating bi-/multilingual identities, shedding light on diasporic individual affiliations. Similarly, the current study examines the linguistic identity negotiations of a transnational family with Pangasinan and American roots. Language plays a crucial role in the creation and negotiation of bi-/multilingual identities as they reveal the allegiances that migrants hold towards their own or other cultures (Itakura and Humphreys 2008). Speakers who belong to bi-/multilingual communities do not switch between languages or varieties. Instead, they use them together as “a single semiotic repertoire” (Arias Álvarez and Gubitosi 2020: 18). According to García and Li (2014), translanguaging strategies allow bi-/multilingual speakers to perform, negotiate, reproduce, and interpret different layered identities, which includes their ethnic and national identity (Canagarajah 2008). In the 1990s, the term translanguaging was first used to refer to a pedagogical practice in which it “simply means (i) receiving information in one language and (ii) using or applying it in the other language” (Williams 2002: 2). Afterwards, the term was used by Baker (2001) and García (2009) who expanded the concept beyond its initial pedagogical scope (D’Hondt 2018) and extended it to include language practices in the classroom setting. Consequently, García (2009: 44) has advanced translanguaging, defining it as “an approach to bilingualism that is centered not on languages as has often been the case, but on the practices of bilinguals that are readily observable”. The author (2009: 44) remarks that translanguaging practices are not distinct or uncommon; rather, they are regarded as “normal mode of communication”. With few exceptions in certain monolingual enclaves, this form of communication is typical across communities worldwide.

In this sense, it encompasses “one linguistic repertoire with features that have been societally constructed as belonging to two separate languages” (García and Li 2014: 2). The language practices of bi-/multilingual speakers are then interrelated, complex, and belong to a creative process wherein there is an engagement of discursive practices of two or more languages. Since migrant people have complex identities, the use of translanguaging practices allow them to show allegiance to both their new home and their birthplace community. Language, then, has an important role in articulating and portraying the identity of oneself since the speaker has at their disposal, various language resources that contribute to highlight specific aspects of their identity depending on the circumstances (Beswick 2014; Joseph 2010; Llamas 2010). Thus, language serves to entail symbolic boundaries of membership or inclusion, as well as non-membership or exclusion.

The present research then investigates the translanguaging practices of a transnational family. Language practices that refer to Pangasinan but also include Filipino and English allow members of the transnational family under study not only to relate to their past, appreciating their home customs and traditions, but also enable them to realize their complex identities precluding sentiment of alienation or displacement.

2.2 Sociolinguistic situation of Pangasinan in the Philippines and the US

Pangasinan is not only the name of a coastal province located in the western area of Luzon, Philippines, but also the designation referring to its people and their language. Pangasinan is one of the 184 living Philippine languages (Eberhard et al. 2023). It is considered an endangered language spoken in the north-Central region of Luzon, and the eighth largest language in the Philippines after Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Bicolano, Waray, and Kapampangan. A total of 1,240,000 inhabitants are identified as Pangasinan users (Eberhard et al. 2023). It is taught in primary schools through the third grade, and a Pangasinan grammar and dictionary have been published.

According to Bernardo-Hinesley and Gubitosi (2022), the sociolinguistic situation of Philippine languages is best understood through examination of the nation’s four-century colonial history, subsequent postcolonial language policies and educational reforms, and the contemporary impact of globalization. With regard to Spanish, Anderson and Anderson (2007) explain that although there were almost four hundred years of Spanish colonization, Spanish speakers never surpassed the 10 % of the total Philippine population as missionaries learned Philippine languages. In contrast, during the American occupation, English became the most important language. It was stipulated as an official language in the 1935 Philippine Constitution used in government offices, educational contexts, and national and international business (Bernardo-Hinesley and Gubitosi 2022). The adoption of textbooks of American origin implied not only the use of English in Philippine schools, but also the content in the curricula, “placing Filipino history, literature, and sociocultural values in competition with those of the United States” (Anderson and Anderson 2007: 8). Subsequently, the 1972 Constitution established both Filipino and English as official languages of the country, and due to nationalistic purposes, initiated a language policy in which Filipino replaced English in the government, business, and schools. In 1985, English continued to be widely used (Gonzalez and Bautista 1986). Currently, both Filipino and English remain the official languages of the Philippines and, along with these, Engalog and Taglish (language contact outcomes) prevail in the media and in everyday conversations in urban areas (Anderson and Anderson 2007).

As to Pangasinan, it is considered the dominant language in the province of Pangasinan, reaching up to 48 % of the province’s population in 2000 (Anderson and Anderson 2007). Most of its citizens speak, besides Pangasinan, two or three other languages: Ilocano (a regional language considered to be the lingua franca of Luzon), Filipino (the national language), and English (the co-official language). According to Rafael and Rosario (2011: 4), “the presence of these languages has impacted the speaker’s attitudes, perception, and use of the Pangasinan language”. As Anderson and Anderson state (2007: 16), “in the Philippine context, we can envision stable situations that may involve several overlapping layers of language use”. Hence, for Pangasinan individuals, Philippine English is the logical communicative online tool, and is used by the Philippine diaspora worldwide. Filipino is the language of the nation’s governmental institutions, and national businesses. Ilocano may be used as the regional lingua franca when traveling in northern Luzon while Pangasinan is used in the more intimate settings of home, family, dear friends, religion, healings, funerals, and so on.

Pangasinan, even though considered a major language in the Philippines with regards to its number of speakers, is facing endangerment (Rafael and Rosario 2011). One of the reasons for this is the ongoing partial language shift as Pangasinan is being displaced by Ilocano, Filipino, and English. Following Anderson and Anderson (2007: 9), other causes of attrition in Pangasinan involve “migration, relative cultural prestige, urbanization, interethnic marriage, and changing language use in various communicative settings”. Nonetheless, besides this deficient outlook, Pangasinan is considered as the most effective linguistic resource to express identity and affect by its speakers (Anderson and Anderson 2007).

In recent years, Pangasinan people have expressed their concern about the decline of their language, culture, and literature. In fact, in 1988, the organization Save the Pangasinan Dialect Movement, alerted that Pangasinan was disappearing, with only a few people committed to preserving it as a cultural heritage (Coronel 1988, in Anderson and Anderson 2007). The same group asked the government that Pangasinan be taught in the province’s school system. In an effort to preserve and revitalize the language, different groups were created such as the Pangasinan Council for Culture and the Arts in 2003, and the Association for the Preservation and Revitalization of the Pangasinan Language, which has published Pangasinan dictionaries, as well as Pangasinan folk literature (Rafael and Rosario 2011).

In the US, as of 2019, there were 4.2 million Filipinos or Americans with Filipino heritage (US Census Bureau 2021). The 2018 US Census Bureau American Community Survey states that the largest populations of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans are in the states of California (1,653,167), Hawaii (367,952), Texas (204,192), Nevada (168,200), Washington (162,658), Florida (158,254), Illinois (156,121), New Jersey (143,845), New York (141,640), and Virginia (117,666).^[1] As to the Pangasinan population in the US, Ethnologue shows that there are around 2,270 residents (Eberhard et al. 2023). By the 1920s, many Pangasinan left the Philippines to find agricultural jobs in the US, specifically in Hawaii and the west coast. After 1947, Filipino migration was extended to other areas of the US, and many were recruited into the Navy. Many of these migrants never returned to their home country, as is the case to the Pangasinan-American family examined in the present study.

Taking into account the Pangasinan diaspora in the US, different organizations were created to promote the cultural interests of the Filipino-Americans of Pangasinan heritage such as the United Pangasinanes of America (UPA) based in California. Anderson and Anderson (2007) interviewed some members to better understand the language use of this community. Participants believed that most members of this organization use Pangasinan, even though there are some members that only speak Ilocano and, for official business, use English. Furthermore, for casual conversations and at social functions, Filipino, Ilocano, or Pangasinan are used, depending on who is present (Anderson and Anderson 2007). Filipino is used to accommodate those who may have limited capacity in Pangasinan. Pangasinan (or Ilocano) may be used in conversations in which all the interlocutors are from Pangasinan- (or Ilocano-) speaking regions of the province and Pangasinan (or Ilocano) is their first language. The prevailing attitude is that, as a matter of politeness, members use the most inclusive language, even reverting to English, as necessary. In addition, Anderson and Anderson (2007) also asked UPA members two questions that relate to language attitudes and identity: “Why is Pangasinan important to you?”, and “Is there anything you can do with Pangasinan that you can’t do with English or Tagalog?”. Some of the responses revealed positive language attitudes with regards to the use of Pangasinan, such as: “We can do it all in English. But Pangasinan makes us feel closer. Why should we speak English with those from Pangasinan? It’s as though you’re keeping your distance. We were raised with Pangasinan. It makes us feel at ease. It makes us feel comfortable” and “Because it gives us a short cut. Words in Pangasinan have emotional meanings. People feel closer to each other when they speak it – a feeling of belonging to one group.” The use of Pangasinan, then, is used to show speakers’ allegiances to their home country. Pangasinan is used in informal conversations to express emotional meanings, and to show membership to the Pangasinan community.

3.1 Research goal and questions

The goal of this research is to analyze how each generational member of a transnational family constructs their complex identities in the discourse and how they illustrate their allegiances to their host and home countries. With this objective in mind, the research questions of the present study are the following:

1. How do individual family members negotiate their multilayered identities in the diaspora? Specifically, what connections to identity does each member establish with Pangasinan, Philippines and Texas, US?

2. Considering the different statuses of the languages in the communities, what are the attitudes of each family member towards English, Filipino, and Pangasinan?

3.2 Data

Following Fritzler (2023) and Arias Álvarez and Gubitosi (2020), the present study employed direct and indirect methods to gather extensive data and to verify the consistency of the participants’ responses: a sociolinguistic interview, an online survey questionnaire, and an ethnographic observation. In compliance with ethical research conduct, approval for human subject participants was obtained prior to data collection. As to the online survey questionnaire, before the provision of the Adult Consent, Parental Permission, and Child Assent forms through Google Forms, two questions were posed: (1) “Are you currently residing in the US?”, and (2) “Are you of Pangasinan heritage? Do you identify as Pangasinan or Pangasinan-American?”. If the answer to these two questions were yes, then the third question followed, “Who are you completing this form for?” with three possible responses: “Myself, and I am 18 years old or older”, “My child, who is under 18 years old”, and “Myself and my child”. Subsequently, participants indicated their and/or their child’s gender identity, current age, age at arrival in Texas, current work, work in Pangasinan, Philippines, and current place of residence. That is, the survey questionnaire collected sociodemographic information about each family member, which is presented in the following subsection. Afterwards, sociolinguistic interviews, which is the primary data source for this research study, were conducted by phone. Each session lasted approximately 45 min, resulting in a cumulative recorded interview duration of 130 min. The questions primarily centered around topics such as family, friends, language learning/acquisition, community, past experiences, language domains, language attitudes, and language choices. Each interview was transcribed and subjected to qualitative thematic analysis: language learning and language experiences, English as the majority language, Filipino as the language of the US-Philippine community, Pangasinan as the diasporic language, and the transmission of Pangasinan. In addition, the ethnographic participant observation of each family member’s language use, which amounts to 320 h, was carried out following the sociolinguistic interviews. To minimize the Observer’s Paradox effects, the observation was conducted by the primary investigator, who is part of the participants’ community and speaks Pangasinan, Filipino, and English. They were observed in the family’s homes which enabled observation of informal communicative interactions. This data allowed a close examination of the ways in which their individual identities were negotiated and expressed through language.

3.3 Participants: recruitment and description of family members

Participants were recruited via snowball sampling. Table 1 presents a summary of information of each individual participant, namely, Agew, Bulan, and Bitewen.^[2] The participants are three members of a Pangasinan-American family residing in Texas, US. In line with Rumbaut’s (2004) generational classification, Agew is categorized as first generation, Bulan belongs to the 1.25 generation, and Bitewen is identified as of the second generation.^[3] A detailed description of every participant is provided after the table.

Agew was born in the municipality of Mangaldan, located in the central part of the province of Pangasinan, Philippines. At the age of 24 years old, Agew married a Pangasinan speaker from a nearby municipality. From this marriage, she became a mother of three children. She, along with her husband and their children, continued to live in Mangaldan as she continued her midwifery practice. At the age of 41, the petition by her husband’s sibling for their family to reside in the US was approved. Regardless of her objection to immigrating to Texas, Agew moved overseas in support of accessibility to quality education and advancement for her children, aged 10, 13, and 16 years old at the time. Though she longed to return and reside in Pangasinan after her children completed their university education, that day has not since arrived. She worked as a caregiver until her age of retirement and her children completed their university education. Given this length of residency, they have then developed their roots in the town of Flower Mound, located northwest of Dallas, Texas. At present, she, along with her husband, lives with their eldest child in the same house they began to live in Flower Mound.

Like Agew, Bulan was born in the municipality of Mangaldan, and resided there until the age of 13 years old. She attended middle school, secondary school, and completed tertiary education in North Texas. She has only visited Pangasinan once with Agew for her 18th birthday, a traditional Philippine coming-of-age celebration, since their arrival to Texas. Like her mother, at the age of 24, she married a man born and raised in North Texas. From this marriage, she became a mother of four: Bitewen, Kumpapey, Sibaweng, and Bayaong.

The second generation participant, Bitewen, was born in North Texas. She is the eldest child of Bulan, and is currently 13 years of age, which is the age when Bulan arrived in Texas. Presently, she is attending middle school.

4.1 Identity ties and language knowledge

When asked as to the languages she speaks, Agew states that she knows Pangasinan, Ilocano, Filipino, and English. In Example (1), she enumerates the domains in which she began learning Pangasinan while simultaneously underlining the purity of the language in this community during this period.

Agew indicates that in the town wherein she was born and raised, she was widely exposed to and interacted in Pangasinan. We notice her use of pure in describing Pangasinan in this space and time alluding to the absence of translanguaging practices, which she readily exhibits as observed in her response. She employs both Pangasinan and English as a single repertoire discussing her language knowledge. Aside from the inner domains of Pangasinan use, she adds that in her place of work, Pangasinan was spoken broadly by her colleagues (see Example (2)).

Agew further states the ease of learning Ilocano and Filipino in Example (3). Filipino, the national language, was widely taught in schools. In addition, she was also exposed to the language through the advent of television during her childhood, and through her elementary and high schools in the 60s and 70s. In these same educational contexts, as well as college, she also learned English. With regards to Ilocano, the language that has been displacing Pangasinan, she learned it through the individuals who attended the same provincial college as her. Through inquiry, she was able to learn the language.

In comparison, Bulan states that the languages she knows are Pangasinan, Filipino, and English. She remembers hearing both of her parents speaking Ilocano with their friends and a few relatives during her childhood, but she conveys that she does not speak it. She expresses in Example (4) that she learned Pangasinan from her family, and Agew’s patients.

Like Agew, Bulan learned Filipino from exposure to television. She also learned it during elementary school and her first year of high school in Mangaldan, Pangasinan. In the same way, English was learned in school; however, she conveys that the language that was widely used by her, her family, and relatives growing up is Pangasinan.

Compared to her grandmother and mother, Bitewen indicates that the only language she knows is English, indicating that on her father’s side of the family, her relatives speak only English, which is the majority language spoken in their community of residence.

Since her birth and before attending school, Bitewen was cared for very often by both of her maternal grandparents. In Example (5), Bitewen states her limitations in her knowledge of Pangasinan in that she is able to understand more than she can speak it, which illustrates her ingrained monolingual view of bilingualism. According to Shin (2018), there is a common assumption that true bilinguals are individuals who possess equal proficiency in both of their languages, with a level of competence in each language that is similar to that of monolingual speakers of those languages. This does not reflect the communicative opportunities in which bi-/multilingual individuals encounter in their contexts, as well as the language(s) and language practices used in discourse by such individuals in particular interactions. As observed, aside from being exposed to the language from her grandparents, mother, uncle, and aunt, she also interacts to some extent with her second cousins and cousins once removed in phone conversations and video telephony.

Despite her knowledge of Pangasinan, she has never traveled to the province or the Philippines. In Example (6), Bitewen underscores her inability to speak Pangasinan in complete sentences. Though she does not recognize herself as a speaker of the language, the primary investigator observed instances in which Bitewen not only understood her grandmother entirely but responded in Pangasinan.

4.2 Embodying identity complexity, and language attitudes in the host society