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US-China relations
China

Mandarin immersion programmes persist in American schools despite high-level US-China tensions

  • From Utah to Michigan, half-day programmes in which regular classes are taught entirely in Chinese find fervent support among parents
  • Desire for children to get global perspective and life opportunities drives demand

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Yu Ying Public Charter School students in Washington DC perform a Chinese song and dance. Between public and private schools, Mandarin immersion programmes can be found in 32 US states. Photo: Yu Ying Public Charter School
Bochen Hanin Washington

What does Washington, DC, have in common with Provo, Utah? Or Greenville, Michigan? Or Overland Park, Kansas?

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All are home to publicly funded Mandarin immersion programmes, where kids as young as three years old spend half of each school day taking their regular classes – like math, science or physical education – entirely in Chinese.

Most of the programmes began during a period of American engagement with China under the administration of Barack Obama, when Mandarin was increasingly seen as a language of global business, optimism for bilateral cooperation was the norm and federal grants for Chinese language learning were more abundant.

In 2015, Obama pledged that by 2020, 1 million American students would be learning Mandarin.

Students at Walnut Hills Elementary School in Greenville, Michigan, where parents earlier this year successfully rallied to save a Mandarin immersion programme from a phase-out. Photo: Facebook/ Walnut Hills Chinese Immersion
Students at Walnut Hills Elementary School in Greenville, Michigan, where parents earlier this year successfully rallied to save a Mandarin immersion programme from a phase-out. Photo: Facebook/ Walnut Hills Chinese Immersion

Eight years later, to say the dynamics have shifted would be an understatement.

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Sino-US tensions now cast doubt over business opportunities in the mainland, while record-high proportions of Americans view China negatively.
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