My goal for the paper was to explain my train of thought when it comes to identity and belonging. There were a few sources we went over in class that I knew I wanted to include, so I started to develop a solid thesis based on that. One area that I think I have to improve on is the transitions between topics because it’s a bit choppy at parts. Overall, I’m proud of what I’ve written.

Essay:

Our sense of belonging shapes who we are and how we view ourselves. As babies, we don’t have our own identity, we just exist in relation to other people. Thandie Newton explains this in her TEDTalk, Embracing Otherness, Embracing Myself, she said, “... the self is a projection based on other people's projections.” We are first defined by other people’s ideals and preconceptions about who we are. We can simplify the major influences of belonging to three sections: friends, family, and social media. The way we act within these three groups are usually very different, self is fluid.

Our friends are who we choose to associate with and relate to. This is how other people view you. When you are in a friend group, the way that group is defined is the way you will likely be labeled. Most don’t notice that they do it, but it’s very detrimental. Grouping people and making assumptions about their personality based on it is limiting and can lead to someone being afraid to do something outside of what their friend group typically does.

The next section is family, which, depending on the situation, can be how we view ourselves. It’s the first indication we have of our own identities since the people in your family are the first people you’re close to. This section can be similar to friends in that when a family thinks a certain way, it’s hard for one individual to break that. There are things people keep secret for their entire lives because they’re afraid of the reaction their family will have. Both friends and family have good and bad parts. On one hand, they offer companionship, giving us something to hold onto. On the other hand, there can be an unacceptance to change that puts a limitation on who we can be.

The last piece is social media, which is how we portray ourselves. The growing popularity of social media has sparked a change in the way we think. Due to the huge impact social media has on us, we often think of it first. The first thing we do in the morning is check our phones to go on Instagram or Snapchat. Online, we can post virtually anything we want, so we can be anything we want. According to Psychology Today, “We come to see our identities as those we would like to have or that we want people to see rather than who we really are.”  There is a pressure in today’s society to have a perfect, aesthetic life and teenagers fall victim to this, thinking that they aren’t as good because they aren’t popular on social media.

When I was a kid, I didn’t have a ‘group’. I was part of them all, which ended up with me not actually being part of any of them. This left me in identity limbo, I didn’t know who I was. Eventually, I learned to be my own person; I figured out who I was to myself, not to others. Now, I still have more than one group, but I genuinely fit into each of them, they all matter. I’ve thought about this a lot, trying to understand why I didn’t fit in, but I realized that it wasn’t just me, it’s really the way people view friendships. Someone’s friends shouldn’t be what defines them, they are their people with individual thoughts and interests. Although there are a lot of negative effects on our identities because of social media, personally, I was benefited. Social media helped me to discover who I was. It allowed me to post and express myself in whatever way I wanted. Family also played a big part in this, they support me constantly.

Identity and self are fluid, they change. People see us in different ways and we act differently around them, this forms our identities. Erving Goffman, one of the most influential sociologists in history, has a theory about self that essentially states that there is no one true self. He thinks that humans just display a series of masks to control how we appear. This theory has been seen and adapted many times, Newton even mentioned a form of it in her TEDTalk, stating that the self she tried to use in the world was rejected so many times that it began adapting to the rejection.

Overall, how we belong has the biggest impact on our identity. A part of it is how people view us, but we choose how they see us. We can manipulate people’s insight to our lives and only show what we think they should see. This ties together all the pieces of belonging, family to first shape our identity, friends to help us find it, and social media to help us change and show it.

I grew up living in a different lifestyle than most Americans. I remember waking up asking myself ,“Why am I so  different from all of my friends?” What I should be asking is, “Why am I different from the people who share the same culture as me?” My culture dictates that the ideal man gets a job and becomes successful, wants to start a family, raise a son, and teach him to be strong and courageous to pass down the family name. I, however, orbit the idea of the social norm in our tradition culture of being Asian, not being completely part of the Teochew (chinese) culture yet I haven’t left it. Both of my parents tried to raise me to be the best at math and science so that I could go to college and become a professional doctor. As I grew older, I realized that being a doctor never interested me. Being a doctor was just an option, but making movies was something that has been in my mind as something I would want to do as a career for a very long time. As time thickened the air of maturity, I consulted myself and began to wonder what my parents’ opinion would be about my career goal of becoming a filmmaker.

I’ve lived the life of being an Asian American, who was raised by a pair of Chinese Cambodian immigrant parents. The American culture was never embraced with my parents and they haven’t adjusted to the norms of what the typical American would do in the United States. As a family, we have always strictly followed our multiculture of being both Chinese and Cambodian. From food to language to family roots, gender roles were never a conflict for my parents because of where they are from. It was as if they already knew what their responsibilities were and what they wanted to do in their future. My mother was raised to stay in a home to cook and clean, and my father was raised to survive hard times through many jobs and small businesses just to make an effort of living. Once they came to America to escape the war that was happening in Cambodia and Thailand, they thought about the possible “freedom” they could have in a new country. After having three children once moving here, they realize how my siblings and I grew up with are different than what they have experienced in their country. They keep telling us, “You don’t know how lucky you are to be born in America with more freedom. You don’t have to do what was expected to for you do back in our country.” They claimed, “You didn’t have to wake up four in the morning to work day and night and come back home to cook and clean the house.” My father would then sometimes tell my sister to sweep around the house and he would tell me to go unload and load the restaurant stocks with him. This is when I realized that the gender roles are becoming a mental concept and what acceptance is for a typical Asian family. I have to learn to accept both options myself as a responsibility. Masculinity hides what I want to do in the future without being judged by others and especially my parents.

What I wanted to be was a professional filmmaker. Directing a film and working with cameras was a dream of mine since childhood. Ever since my parents allowed me to watch horror movies as a child, they told me that it couldn’t be real because the camera man would have been killed the minute the movie started. It brought a question to my attention: “What if I could make movies like that and understand how people make movies.” Unfortunately my parents disagreed to my thought process. They said, “Making movies is a waste of time and it’s not as fun as being a doctor. You get to study for money. Once you become a doctor, you can help people. That helps your good karma and you don’t have to struggle with losing anything.” The words stabbed me like a burning hot knife gutting my heart out.  As their son, they want me to be better than who they were. As the oldest of the siblings, my parents only supported me to be highly skilled at math and science, training me to do multiplication when I turned four. My mom thought it would help if I learned the multiplication table of two in Cambodian as well. They set the expectation so high, but after reaching the seventeenth year of my life I feel as if I was the one who is backstabbing my parents of their hard work raising me for something they didn’t expect. Filmmaking to them seemed unmanly and non-educational in a traditional Asian family.

For generations, my family has been very traditional with gender roles and how masculine a son could be. America is still changing the norm of having a diverse culture and gender is becoming a loose idea of how we consider our identity to be. From New York Times, The Boys Are Not All Right, the author stated, “It’s funny because it shouldn’t be that easy to rob a man of his masculinity, but it is.”(1). When describing what masculinity looks like around different cultures, Asian men are very vulnerable of how masculine they are. Whether it is a situation of life and death or something smaller, we accept the fact that we can be light hearted in the inside. Most men won’t show how they feel as if there was a secret male language that could not be spoken. In The Boys Are Not All Right by New York Times, the author mentioned, “They are trapped, and they don’t even have the language to talk about how they feel about being trapped, because the language that exists to discuss the full range of the human emotion is still viewed as sensitive and feminine.”(2). Not showing any sign of being feminine, males consider themselves not vulnerable or sensitivity. Cooking and cleaning in a household would be considered feminine and ladylike, but in my case I cook and clean as a practice to when I leave for college. From Coming Home Again by Chang-Rae Lee, Lee wrote, “She shooed me away in the beginning, telling me that the kitchen wasn’t my place…” I find the skills of cooking to be essential to my everyday life, rather than focusing on how masculine I needed to be in order for myself to be accepted in certain societies. Sometimes masculinity is viewed as “life or death” for mankind, especially when I have two different cultures to fit into. I feel as if I live in two different lives, one at home being some of the Asian expectations, and one socially in the American society where people are more accustomed to the American Culture.

What is considered the most valued aspects of being Asian is that we surround ourselves with our culture and our “identity”. Also being a American citizen, I have to consider the cost of what is accepted of the American society and what is accepted within the traditional Asian family. Playing two different people is hard enough as it is, and trying to bring one culture into another is a pessimistic goal.  What I want is a lot different from what other people expect, but it isn’t always the case where two diverse cultures can go hand in hand with each other. However, I can live two lives but the only assumption I have is that I have to expect the unexpected. I will expect disappointment from certain people, and others will expect disapproval.

Work Cited

Black, Michael Ian. “The Boys Are Not All Right.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Feb. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/opinion/boys-violence-shootings-guns.html.

I often hear people predict, “You look like a [name]” and guess something scarily accurate. During childhood, many children craft their appearances and personalities to resemble people with their same name, identifying with that group and subconsciously conforming to match it. The names we are given dictate our identity starting the day we are born. They present us with shoes to fill, or to defy; they offer a personality (e.g., unique, traditional) to take on. However, these names are only the first step. Our parents label us with these names likely as a mere suggestion of the person we should be, but as we grow, our communities and societal influences begin to use names as restrictive measures. Children’s development of feelings of identity and belonging stem directly from these labels.

Given names are the first label one is awarded and a lifelong one at that, offering a persona for the child to take on. They are similar to visual first impressions and for this reason, they carry a strong associative power. One article notes this trend, “When a new person introduces himself to you (let's call him "Spencer"), your first instinct is to assemble a rough mental sketch of everyone you have ever known named Spencer… You subconsciously judge this new Spencer, at least a little, based on all the other Spencers you have ever known” (Hedrick). People create some expectations for others based on their name prior to any interaction with them or other information concerning them, thus enforcing the external influence a given name has on identity.

Names have drastic effects on internal views of identity as children learn to build their identity based on their names. Naming trends vary, with many parents handing down a relative’s name and tacking on “Jr,” while others try to find the most unique name possible for their child, and with many variations in between. Whether they choose to name their child with a numerical suffix or an uncommon name, both are encouraging their child to lead a certain type of life. Being named after one’s father or another family member gives a child a standard to meet, but some learn to instead challenge the notion that they should be another “chip off the old block.” Familial connotations, religious connotations, gendered implications, as well as having a name with no connections, affects where a child feels they belong or do not belong.

Aside from given names, children are further labeled as they grow and learn in a community or school context, quickly learning behaviors that are labeled masculine or feminine, intelligent or stupid. Children are given names associated with their gender and their perceived capability early on, and these names become who they are as it is easier for them to give in to societal pressures than to defy them in their early childhood.

As for gendered labels, girls and boys find themselves restricted by the implications that the words girl or boy come with. Girls are taught to be “girly” which in many contexts means submissive and shallow, while boys are taught to be violent, stoic, and powerful to fulfill the notion that “boys will be boys.” In the case of boy’s learned identities based on their labels, it has become an issue that boys go through this “shame-hardening process” (Velasquez-Manoff) because it creates a destructive culture of hypermasculinity. One researcher mentions that men are not inherently bad, that their power complex derives from their interpretation of being male from childhood norms, explaining, “They’re ‘over conforming’ to common, if exaggerated, notions of masculinity. They’re doing a five-star rendition of what they think manhood requires” (Velasquez-Manoff).

Children are also affected by the names of intelligence parameters bestowed to them in early childhood. When given the label of “smart” or “dumb,” children take the label to heart and follow the norms associated with them as they do with gendered labels. One woman, Amy Cuddy, shared her testimony in her TED Talk, describing a traumatic car accident that resulted in her being withdrawn from college and her IQ dropping two standard deviations. She stated, “I had identified with being smart, and I had been called gifted as a child,” (Cuddy) so it was very difficult for her to understand who she was without her “core identity.” Due to the names she was given in childhood, she struggled with recovery as she no longer followed what society said was accepted or expected from her and had to essentially create herself over.

Effects of naming are not strictly positive or negative. People often feel connected with their given names as they remind them of their families. Gendered labels can be empowering when used correctly, and positive reinforcement through intellectual labels can build confidence in children. The issue is the misuse or abuse of labels: when these names take over a child’s identity in a negative sense. Children often have very little control over how these labels shape them and similarly minimal recognition of their influence. However, in adulthood, some have taken to renaming themselves as a form of rebirth, properly addressing themselves to match who they are. They change their names in defiance of the restrictions that their names implied to embrace their true identity (e.g., references to countries of origin, variations of words that resonate with them) and have ownership over themselves.

Works Cited

Cuddy, Amy. “Your body language may shape who you are.” TED. TEDGlobal 2012, 6 Mar.

2018, Edinburgh,

https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are#t-1234115

Dahl, Melissa. “Junior status: Sharing dad's name a mixed bag.” NBCNews.com,

NBCUniversal News Group, 19 June 2009,

www.nbcnews.com/id/31416975/ns/health-mens_health/t/junior-status-sharing-dads -name-mixed-bag/#.Wp3xwOinHrd.

Hedrick, Michael. “How our names shape our identity.” The Idea Factory , The Week, 15

Sept. 2013, www.theweek.com/articles/460056/how-names-shape-identity.

Velasquez-Manoff, Moises. “Real Men Get Rejected, Too.” The New York Times, The New York Times Company, 24 Feb. 2018,

Advance essay #2  

No English

In the essay I wanted to explore the literacy of not speaking the languages. And how it can affect people in different way.   People don’t understand how hard it is to not speak a language in a country that everyone speaks that languages and how hard it is to get through everything.

It was the second day of our new house in in 2011, two weeks in united states.  I did not speak english at that time. Neither did my family. We just came to united states and finally moved into our new house. The moving process did not take long because we did not have that many things with us. Not like we can bring furniture on  a plane. We had to sell all the furniture that my mom customized it in her own design that she was really proud of. I remembered that my mom was really sad when she had to sell her dresses which was completely new she just got it and it’s made out of real wood. After we moved in and finished putting everything away I realized I didn’t have anything to do at all. My mom wanted to take a nap while my dad was at work, and my siblings were sleeping while I was bored in this big home doing nothing. I didn’t have a television either. I wandered around the house and found a window. Then I looked out and saw that you can climb out the window and sit on the roof top but it didn’t have a door to go through. I looked out and saw the next door people had a deck on the rooftop and they had a door so I decided to go out and climb through the window. In the process of climbing I almost slipped and fell but I held on to the window. “Becareful” someone said “Ki” “Oh, I said be careful”  I  just looked at her didn’t know what to say. “Are you guys new here” she said. First I didn’t get what she said but then I knew what the word new was so I said yes. “don’t go to far off the edge” now what she just blabared I didn’t understand, but I just said ok so she doesn't have repeat herself. Finally I was able to come down from the edge of the window to the roof of the second floor. “ did you understand what I said” she said. “I...I no I.. NO ENGLISH” I said to her. Her facial expression changed from normal to confused “OH OK….Well it was nice to meet you” I didn’t say anything not because I didn’t understand but because I didn’t know what to say to her. Then she left and went in the door that was made for the deck unlike me climbing through a window. From that moment in my life I realized that “Flies don’t enter a closed mouth” Interpret that as if I don’t learn or try to learn english there wouldn't be any word coming out of my mouth. And I wouldn’t understand anything people would say to me.

From then on I always Look at the book my dad brought to learn english. I watched TV and cartoons like my aunts said to. She said it would help me know some words and learn  how to use them in real life.  

Another time I had to I had experience not understanding english  was with my mom. It was 3 years after the time when I met the lady on the deck. By then I knew how to speak english good enough to understanding everything and not no know to speak. I could speak fine then. I was in 7th grade.  I became the ultimate translator in my family. I had to go everywhere with my mom and dad from grocery stores to green card office to school  report card conference.

One day I was just sitting in my room after school  thinking about everything and how much my life has changed from when I was in my country to now. And the differnce between teachers, how they teach vs how teachers teaches in my country. One of the most different thing about teachers in united states vs teachers in Bangladesh is the strictness. Which reminds me of a time when I didn’t bring my homework to school in Bangladesh….

I woke up in the morning with knots in my stomach. I knew that this day wouldn’t go right. It was one of those days where nothing goes your way and everything you do ends up being wrong.  I walked down the hallway to my bathroom to get ready for school. After I got ready I went to go have breakfast but no one was awake to make breakfast. Sighing…. “Okay I’ll just take a granola bar and eat it on the way,” I said to myself. I went to go put everything in my backpack but I saw all my stuff in the in my backpack already, Then I remembered I never did any of my homework because I didn’t feel well that weekend. “Oh my god , oh my god “ I kept saying.” I didn’t realize I was saying it a little loud. “Why are you screaming” my mom screamed at me. “I’m not screaming” I said yelling at her. She just looked at me knowing she's right. Sigh… “I’m leaving.” I said to my mom. I walked down stairs and open the gate and started walking down the block. Half way through the walk I realized I didn’t eat any breakfast neither did I bring my granola bar with me. I silently shook my head at myself knowing that it can get way worse today, I just know it. As soon as I went near the school I look at the watch on my hand to see that I have a minute until they ring the bell. I ran up the stairs to the 4th floor, I had english first today. Walking in I sat in my assigned sit near the window. I sat down and took out my english textbook and my homework book to show my homework but I didn’t do it. I put my hand under my chin and looked out the window. I didn’t realize that the teacher was in front of my desk calling my name. “ huh.. Oh ami kori nai = Oh I didn’t do it” “ Cano= Why?” “Āmi asusta chilam ēbaṁ āmi ēṭi bhulē gēchi = I've been sick and I forgot I had homework”  She looked at me like I forgot my passport for my flight that’s leaving. For ten second she just stared at me which felt a lot more than ten second. Never in my life did I have more strict teacher than her. She always seems mad. “ Bā'irē dām̐ṛiẏē thākō yatakṣaṇa nā āmi tōmākē āsatē bali = go stand outside until I tell you to come in ” That day she made me stand outside the door of the classroom  for 10 minutes. When she finally told me to come in she gave me a lecture about how she going to tell my mom. It always fascinates me how much of a difference in teaching  over there and how they teaches in united states.

Works cited

How to tame a wild tongue By: GLORIA ANZALDUA

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HiE7cGVyGIXXl1vYOQw3_vETIl66U3W-UN2Ht6Jih48/edit

Advanced Essay #2 - Andrew Rodebaugh

When you are on social media do people know that it is you? Do you feel more open to your opinions when you are online? Do you feel like there is less consequences for your actions? Or do you know that but think you can simply “figure it out” in the future? Are you more open about/to people online vs in person?  Being online can make you a different person because it is so easy and their are either no real consequences if any they are not immediate most of the time. The ability to change your identity online can make it seem like you have the ability to be more open about people or show your true personality but can lead into future problem mostly out of your control. We have a different personality online and offline which is not a bad thing generally but the seemingly absence of consequence online can make you do things you would never think to do offline or people in your life would never want you to do at all.

After stressful days at school wanting to disconnect from life I jumped out of my Andrew Rodebaugh self and jumped into my other self “Cosmic” my online identity where I was seen as the normal nerdy teen (among other things that I don’t want to share) that I wanted to be seen as in real life but it is hard to or not wise to. I got a couple good friends and got pretty popular online. It was good at the time being able to share my thoughts without being judged and being able to think for a while before responding which helped me avoid making mistakes of which I make in real life. I created projects with them since they were mostly programmers like me and they were really awesome about working on them. The best part was that they did not know who I really was, what I looked like, where I was from, and same about them. All they knew about me and all I knew about them is that I program, I try to listen to people and I can be helpful with life situation.

Unfortunately I became to used to it I went online and they were online most of the time… they were nice and they helped me through some tough times and we had fun making projects together. But then after a while the username became them and they became like my personal chatbots I did not really put a person behind the keyboard it might sound creepy but it is easy to do when talking to someone you do not know while online. Then you become more  open, more honest and you are quicker to criticize because you don’t really see their true emotions during a situation which can obviously lead into some problems. Then I was lead into a choice between two online friends…

Hero -> Cosmic: “Cosmic I cannot stand @jordan anymore he thinks he owns this whole project though he barely does anything.”

Cosmic -> Hero: “What happened?”

Hero -> Cosmic: “Don’t you see how he is constantly telling us what to do? He barely even knows how to code! Why did you even invite him!”

Jordan -> Cosmic: “Is @hero talking bull crap about me again? He constantly complains. I am just trying to keep things organised. Why did you even invite him he constantly complains and does annoying things?”

Cosmic -> Jordan: “Well maybe you guys need to work this out yourselves. I don’t want to get into any of this”

Jordan -> Cosmic: “Well if that is the case… If you do not kick him out I will quit and if you haven't forgotten I own the server which has the code in it… so it is either him or me and the code.”

That whole week was full of arguing online and it started to crumble this project I have been working with them for a long time was removed from the server so we were unable to use the code. People left and stopped chatting with me because I got impulsed to say things out of anger and frustration which was more than I would ever offline because I thought everything would work itself out like it always did. There was some other stuff that happened which is why you should not mess with programmers Jordan was able to take from a domain name I bought the IP address of my computer to be able to pinpoint my location being able to get my name to then get images of me. Then it happened I was out, they now knew who I was that safety I once had of being able to talk openly about myself went down the drain. I now had a real identity and they were learning things about me I did not want them to learn like my heart defect, what I look like, how I sound, my school, more of my interests and more. The web is a scary place that has so much information about you which anyone can find just by using my name. Your past is online and will continue to be online for the foreseen existence of the web and it is highly accessible with a simple online post. Put something embarrassing online then deleted it… don’t worry it is in some archive somewhere for someone to access.

Your identity affects how people will treat you that is why I wanted to hide it to create a new identity. Now they thought I was a disabled kid that needs help and is going through problems in life. And now they treated me that way which is the way many other people offline treated me… these were supposed to be the people that only new the good stuff about me: my close to perfect identity the person I would want to be seen as in life.

In conclusion, when people do not know your true identity such as online, people treat you differently. Your race, gender, ethnicity, disability and look among other things that make up yourself define how people interact you making online a safer place to express yourself sometimes. Making it safer until your identity comes out if it does.

Introduction

The main goal of my written essay is to a point of view of someone who speaks multiple languages. People have different experiences with languages and how it affects their knowledge of education. I wanted to express the issues that my parents see and how I experience a daily life being a multi linguist.

Hidden In Plain View Of A Multi Linguist

Language is a beautiful way to communicate with people In both spoken and written ways. Most languages have culture behind them and sometimes are much different than others. Although, language is sometimes referred to as person’s identity because it is how others see how well educated they are. Education plays a huge part in how a person’s identity can classify how successful they might be in the future. A person without the knowledge of learning how to read, write and properly speak can effectively cause someone to look down upon them.

In Mother Tongue, Amy Tan discusses the way her mother uses English, that it is “fractured” or not as fluid as how other Americans speak. She grew up influenced by her mother’s speech and she adapted into the language of “broken” English. Tan is first generation Asian American, and readers can see the view of point of how the author experiences her mother speaking English is very different in comparison with most Americans. She believed that it wasn’t her mother’s fault for not speaking English fluidly as she is an immigrant who is making an effort to effectively communicate, and Tan claims Americans dismiss her mother’s speech just because it is not standard, writing, “I’ve heard other terms, ‘limited English,’ for example.”

Language has always been incorporated to how well educated a person can be. How well a person is taught, shows in their knowledge and their mindset. In I Just Wanna Be Average by Mike Rose, the author’s work describes his personal experience of going to college as an Italian American. His environment was different than others. His identity was a label of how his professors would consider him as a student and the work he turns in. Rose mentions that education does not have the best system: “School can be a tremendously disoriented place.” He believes that sometimes schools can judge based on identity and the person’s origin.  

Growing up as an Asian American, there are unique things to learn that are essentials to life. My main issue is my primary language, Teochew. I was told that English was an American language, and that the only way to be able to communicate in America was to twist my tongue to English. However, my life at home is different. The language that I speak at home is Teochew, a dialect of Traditional Chinese. It is one of the Chinese dialects that still exist, but barely a fraction of the world knows how to use it. Sometimes speaking the language made me feel like I was different from the world around me. Here in America, the most common language is English

I remember a time when my dad and I were coming back from Jetro, a restaurant depot. As we came back, my dad was driving and I sat in the passenger seat. Everytime we drive back home as the sun begins to set across a highway, we have a long discussion about life and ways I can be independent. One of the discussions that we talked about was about the culture that my parents grew up with. The best conversation is when one topic become another. Though, coming from Jetro, we were tired and exhausted from lifting supplies into the trunk of our mini van. My mood was stressed and tense from lifting so often and my arms sore from shoulder to shoulder. My dad started talking about how my sister’s future would might become if she didn’t start being wise about her own surrounding.

My dad said, “I fear for her life. What might become of her when she has a husband and a child of her own. If she doesn’t start now, she wouldn’t be able to help her own family. She is powerless. Her intelligence is poor. She could barely communicate with me in Teochew words.”

I told my father that I didn’t know I feel. I told him that I have experienced times when she was being lazy and doesn’t want to do things herself.

My father stated, ”She relies on others to help her get through many things that she wants. If she doesn’t put effort in her education and worry about her future, she won’t have a future.”

I agreed. I sighed and watched the remaining rays of light glow in red and orange across the thin clouds from the sunset.

The conversation began to switch about how much of the Teochew we each knew. My father pointed out that I was fortunate that I had parents who was able to teach me to be bilingual. There were a lot of perks to be able to speak another language than English.

He told me, “When there are times of trouble, you can communicate without others knowing what you are saying. If you were hostage and you see someone with a gun, you can warn people who speak the same language to be cautious of the armed person. You don’t want to be the first ones dead. Having to learn two languages is a gift. The gift should be used wisely.”

He explained why I was lucky to be born in America and have a school to get education from. My father never had the ability to learn in a school because his parents never had the money to pay for school. He was one of the children that hid behind an open window to be able to listen to what the teachers were teaching. He ended up with a bit of education to start with. He wasn’t able to read and write properly, so speaking Thai, Teochew, and a bit of Khmer (Cambodian) was part of his identity. Now in America, he learns a bit of English to be able to communicate with the people around him. My question that I keep asking him was, “Why do not a lot of people not speak Teochew?” Most of the people that I have met spoke popular languages such as: Khmer, English, Spanish, Cantonese, or Mandarin. After years of researching, there were people in certain areas that was able to understand and communicate with Teochew. Not everyone is perfect in the dialect and accent but they have a sense of understanding.

Citations:

Rose.pdf. http://userwww.sfsu.edu/mmartin/rose.pdf. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Cvq7ioloJpZGNkYTM0ZjUtNDczZC00NWE2LWEyMTQtMjgzZDRhYTAzNTBi/view