ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 concludes the case studies by contrasting the experience of two girls - Cathy and Mei-Yee - who both claim strongly Chinese identities. These girls were also the most multilingual of the participants, each having facility in Teochew, Mandarin and either Cantonese (Cathy) or Khmer (Mei-Yee). We see that while these girls draw on heritage languages in a range of important functions in their lives, they orient more fulsomely to English and mainstream Australian culture than the other girls in this study. Their status as Chinese speakers also gives them a different relationship to the divide between Chinese international students and local students at the school and helps us to better understand the nature of this divide, and also its limits.
