Just a personal reflection…
My parents immigrated from Korea to the states in the early 80s knowing little to no English. They both worked low income jobs and it was hard for them to transition into the American culture. When I was growing up, I was taught Korean first, English second. I remember my parents telling me that when I went to Montessori School, I would talk to my teachers in Korean, not knowing the difference between the two languages.
Then my parents decided it would be a good idea to send me to Korean school. I attended Korean school for six years, but during that time, I had no desire to learn to read and write. I just wanted to play (hahaha, what kid doesn’t?). I guess you could say that I comprehended the basics of reading and writing but it was still really hard for people to understand what I was writing and it was hard for me to fully comprehend what was going on in conversations. In middle school and high school, I remember wishing I knew how to speak, read, understand, and write fluently. It was especially embarrassing when adults (especially my parents and grandmother) would talk to me in Korean and expect me to understand and respond back in Korean. I would usually respond back in English or use Konglish (kind of like Spanglish). This drove me to sign up for the Korean classes here. So far, I’m glad I made the decision to take Korean.
I think there is definitely a desire in our generation to learn our family’s heritage, culture, and language. Unlike the time when immigrants that came to America tried to assimilate into the “American way of life”, there is more emphasis on being different and preserving the cultures.
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2 comments:
I fully agree that our generation is interested in learning about their native culture and what not, I myself have a spanish speaking family and cant speak spanish that well at all. Im taking spanish classes now and cannot wait until I can speak fluently. For us I feel like its almost a necessity seeing as both of our families speak another language and we cannot or in your case cannot as well as you'd like to.
I agree with Jennifer and Danny. I was born in America too but my parents came from Pakistan. Jennifer's Konglish situation applies to me too. I grew up learning Urdu and English, but the latter took over once my older siblings went to school and came back home talking in English and when I hit school. I can understand Urdu but am not very fluent in speaking it.
But, I actually think that the older generations were more into assimilating into American culture, whereas the current and, perhaps, future generations are more interested in embracing their cultural heritage. Perhaps, this is the case because the social context was completely different 50-70 years ago than it is today. Today, there is much more acceptance of racially and ethnically different people; Americans are not as xenophobic as they used to be - or if they are, it would the older generational class that is, not so much our demographic. But, again, if you look at the social context, many of the people in the older generation, Americans and immigrants alike, were not taught of racial, ethnic, and cultural tolerance. The youth today are exposed to such principles from a young age.
Imagine a school classroom. You will probably not see only white faces when you walk in; there will be children from different ethnicities and races in the room as well. Pritesh mentioned in one of his reflections that each time the Latino people have tried assimilating, they have failed. I do not share this viewpoint because although they may never assimilated on such a grand scale as they had initially had set out to, they have assimilated slowly over the years enough for their children to be included in our school systems. Then, you could say that assimilation is not really a loss of cultural heritage; may be at the most basic level it is a compromise between two starkly different cultures for the marginalized culture to have a chance at many of the opportunities people of the mainstream culture have access to.
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