Phenomenological insights into Farsi heritage language maintenance among second-generation Iranian-Americans

Even though the number of Iranian immigrants to the United States has increased since the 1970s in various states including Texas, meager research has been undertaken on Iranian-Americans and their challenges maintaining their heritage language, Farsi, and developing Iranian American identities. This qualitative study is intended to explore those challenges among second-generation Iranian-Americans in Texas. The study focuses on attaining an in-depth understanding of life experiences of 10 selected participants who were born and raised in the United States and live in Texas. Through the adoption of a hermeneutic phenomenological design (Patton, 2015), this study will investigate and collect data through face-to-face and open-ended interview questions, document study, and observations. Hermeneutic phenomenology will be utilized as an interpretive framework, method, and procedure of this study to explore the lived experiences of participants so as to better understand the sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and socioinstitutional effects upon the maintenance of Farsi as a heritage language and the formation of Iranian American identities