What is the Midwest Heritage Language Network?
Chicago’s iconic Little Village. Chicago is home to the largest Spanish speaking population in the Midwest.
Deerborn, Michigan is home to one of the nation’s largest Arabic speaking communities.
In response to changing demographics and a growing awareness of the need for a multilingual workforce, the field of heritage language teaching has blossomed. The Midwest is home to a rapidly growing heritage language population. Between 2000 and 2010, the population of persons five and older who spoke a language other than English at home increased by over one million. In addition, certain Midwestern states are leading the nation in the number of dual-language educational programs. Notwithstanding the considerable growth of the heritage language population, however, language loss in the Midwest often occurs in as little as two generations. This abrupt loss is due to many factors including the dispersed nature of heritage language communities and the predominance of low ethnolinguistic vitality.4 In fact, countless Midwestern communities manage to maintain their heritage tongue against incredible odds. Heritage language teachers, researchers and community members across the region share comparable experiences, confront similar problems, and work in similar communities that are uniquely Midwestern. There is currently no resource that heritage language communities and scholars can turn to that reflects this multilingual and multicultural reality. In order to address this need, a group of language scholars across 5 institutions in the Humanities Without Walls Consortium covering 5 different heritage languages (Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish) will collaborate to create The Midwest Heritage Language Network (MHLN). The MHLN enhances opportunities for heritage language instruction, research and community engagement through the following activities: 1) the creation of an online corpus of heritage language speech in the Midwest, and 2) the development of heritage language symposia throughout the region.