This book reports on a ten-year-old maintenance Chinese bilingual education program in a public school located at the heart of a Chinatown community in California. It uses a multilevel ethnographic approach, considering the classroom, the school, and the broader community. First covered are the ways that a bilingual education program is initiated, implemented, and perceived in a Chinese community, emphasizing the need for long-term participant observation and ethnographic interviewing in the target school and community. The collection and analysis of ethnographic data are described fully. Then the program itself is described, both in general and in its specific application in a sample school. The book next addresses the life and aspirations of Chinatown Chinese-Americans, a segment of society little studied or understood. Through firsthand reports, Chinatown residents speak about their background, goals, and perspectives on education. Finally, interaction between the school and the community is described. To provide an illustrative model of how a multilevel ethnography may be designed, carried out, and reported, a detailed methods and procedures chapter is included. (LHW)