talk to now, they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, you still speak really good Punjabi but you were a lot better back then; now your words are broken.’ And I’m just like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ you know, ‘I’m trying.’ It’s just different.” Hintsa, who possesses basic fluency in Tigrinya, often finds himself avoiding conversation in Tigrinya or having to rely on his parents to understand what relatives are saying, something that was glaringly evident during his trip to Eritrea in the summer of 2019. “When I saw my grandpa for the first time, I wanted to speak to him, but he only knows Tigrinya, so I barely knew what he was saying, and then I had to ask my parents or anybody around me what he was saying,” Hintsa said. “It sucks because I want to listen to what they have to say because it’s the first time leaving and visiting family.” Senior Kevin Tong describes situations where he has to communicate with his grandparents in Mandarin rather than English, which they are not fluent in, as uncomfortable. “This is very stressful and I often just try to avoid conversation with them at some point in fear of unintentionally saying something disrespectful—cultural differences—or not making sense,” Tong said in a survey response. Aside from difficulties in family life and communication, Saran
Such experiences can cause feelings of disappointment and doubt in one’s own cultural identity. “I feel kind of like it’s not normal to not be fluent in my native language since I know so many people who are,” sophomore Joann Jaison, who speaks Malayalam, said. “And then it’s kind of weird, but I kind of feel more embarrassed to bring it up because I feel like I’m not authentic enough because I don’t know my language.” THE INHERITED LANGUAGE In what is seemingly a contrast to the aforementioned experiences, the UPA survey revealed 34 of the 56 students surveyed speak their first language at home “often” or “always.” What prevents these students from achieving full fluency in their first languages? This is where the term “heritage language” comes in. A heritage language in the U.S. is a language other than English. For example, although languages such as Hindi or Korean are not official languages of the U.S., they are familiar to individuals and communities in which they are spoken, understood, read, written or simply heard. These languages are learned at home during youth, but never completely developed due to insufficient linguistic input outside the home. In the U.S., speakers of heritage languages grow up in an environment where English is the dominant spoken lan-
Nahum Hinsta (10) wants to be able to communicate with his grandfather in Tigrinya. believes that a lack of first language fluency can also affect a person’s connection to their culture. “Especially when I go out to festivals, there’s the speaker and I can understand parts of it, but she’s speaking words I’ve never heard of and people are laughing at the jokes and I’m like, ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’ I would love to [understand].” According to Saran, in scenes such as family parties, this cultural discord is especially apparent. “You just feel like a foreigner in your own language, your own region,” Saran said. “It’s just a weird feeling.” Ngo agrees, citing newer slang and literature as examples of Vietnamese culture that she cannot access. “Being able to speak with family members, being able to consume a whole other culture of experiences and literature [are reasons why I wish I was fluent],” Ngo said. “It’s like I know well enough to know I’m missing out on something but not well enough to actually understand what I’m missing out on.”
guage, which they eventually gain greater fluency in. As a result, the linguistic history of first-generation immigrants can follow a common thread: up until a person enters school, first language development is advanced or native, but once formal education begins, first language fluency decreases until English replaces it as the principal mode of communication. “Once I started learning English through TV and going to preschool, elementary, my need to use Vietnamese sharply decreased, while my need to use English sharply increased,” Ngo said. “And when you’re a kid, when you stay home and you only use one language at home, so it’s hard to build your vocabulary for that.” Oftentimes, heritage language speakers’ skills are limited to those they acquired as children—elementary grammar, household vocabulary and basic conversational skills. “When I’m talking, it’s like, ‘Hi, my name’s Kathy,’ and my Vietnamese-speaking abilities are those of a second grader,’” Ngo joked. Continued on next page IN-DEPTH | 22
