As a child Celia begged her father to teach her Chinese, but he refused. Why do you suppose this was? If your ancestors hale from a country where English isn’t spoken, how did they feel about retaining their language and culture after immigrating?
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Celia’s father thought he was protecting her. He wanted her to grow up and become an American, speak the language and do well in school. I think this was typical of early immigrants. My grandparents were from Slovakia and while the language was spoken at home, the grandchildren never learned the language, we all spoke English, even when Baba spoke to us in Slovak, we responded in English. It was their way of helping us to grow and advance in this country. They knew that not understanding the language led to being taken advantage of, as my grandfather, a coalminer, often was.
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I had that same experience.
My father spoke beautiful Italian, but he never taught us, but I guess we never asked. 
We would hear him speaking to his father and his siblings.
My parents both grew up the children of Hungarian immigrants. Like @Elizabeth, my grandparents didn’t offer & my parents weren’t interested. Later in life, after my sister and I were out on our own, they did take Hungarian language lessons for several years.
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Celia’s father wanted a better life for his daughter. As a Chinese immigrant he was faced with prejudice and cruelty. I believe he thought Celia would have more opportunities if she spoke only English.
At the time, the immigrants were trying to acclimate to America. Part of that was changing to a new language.
I agree Lynne especially since her mother was not Asian. He knew she would have find prejudice and cruelty for that fact and so speaking a language other than English would only add fuel to the fire.
I agree that he thought it would protect people from finding out she was Chinese and that it would make things easier for her down the line.
My great-grandmother came to the States from Russia when she was a child. It’s been said that after learning English, she did all she good to lose her accent and hated when people spoke in other languages. I find it sad today that none of her language was passed on but I can at least understand her perspective on trying to assimilate and not be judged on background.