Language can affect your personality and how people perceive you. It isn’t easy for immigrants coming to the United States and having to learn a whole new language. In general, people can struggle when learning languages. Mine and my peers Ashley Willaims and Autumn Avery’s narrative essays speak about this struggle. When reading their narratives, although my narrative spoke about a different situation, I found similarities in both of them. Language by Amitava Kumar speaks about similar struggles and experiences as well.

Ashley’s narrative talks about her struggles coming to us. Although she spoke English, She still shared some similar struggles to people who came to the US speaking a different language. Having grown up on a small island in the Caribbean, St Lucia, she spoke a different dialect of English native to her home country. When she came to the US, she immediately felt ostracized because she didn’t speak the same as the other kids, and they would even make fun of and mock her for it. She stated, “I was afraid to speak because I noticed how different I sounded from everybody else.” I related this in my narrative because I was often scared to speak Spanish when I was in the Dominican Republic because everyone spoke a lot better than me, and I felt embarrassed at times. Both of our fears of being judged caused us to not want to speak. After some time in America, she started to talk more like her peers. She adapted to her environment and as a result, some of her native English started to fade. I feel like this can be related to my experience, because in my narrative I expressed how growing up in America made it hard for me to hold on to my family’s language, and It made me feel like my heritage was fading. After all, If I could not speak Spanish very well, how would my children be able to hold on to my family’s roots? After being in the US for a few years, Ashley went back to live in St Lucia, and it was a similar experience to when she came to live in the US. She felt like an outsider in her own homeland because she had lost some of her accent. In the US, her classmates made fun of her because of her native accent, and when she finally adapted, people in her homeland made fun of her because of her more American way of speaking. I feel like this was the part I most related to, because when I went to the Dominican Republic, I felt too American, and I wanted to speak just like the people there. Me and Ashley were both criticized because of the way we spoke, whether in English or Spanish. Language highlights moments like this. An example is when Kumar was recalling a movie he watched which included a scene of a Korean grocery worker being criticized. The scene shows a customer criticizing the way he spoke and insulting his country. “.. You come to my country, you take my money, you don’t even have the grace to learn my language?”(Kumar 17) This scene can be related to Ashleys experience. Even though people may have not criticized her in the same way in her narrative, both experiences show how people can get criticized for speaking or being different from others. For Ashley, it was her St Lucia accent that was different from her peers in America. 

Autumn’s narrative talks about the experiences of her close friend, Ruhan. He spoke mainly Bengali growing up, and it affected him in some ways. She talks about how the education system puts bilingual people or immigrants at a disadvantage. It seems almost ironic because this country was built on immigrants and multilingualism. This can also be related to the example I gave from Language. In the scene I shared, the customer was expecting the Korean grocery store worker to speak English, which is a recurring theme in America. In society, immigrants or people who speak different languages are expected to learn English and basically become Americanized, and even when they try to, a lot of them can get insulted because they aren’t as good at English as natives are. This idea of becoming Americanized has been seen since the “founding” of this country when Native Americans were sent to boarding school where they were essentially stripped of their culture and language and were forced to speak English and adapt to European culture. Immigrants and some bilingual people can be seen as less educated because of their language abilities. This is seen in Ruhan’s experiences, as he struggled on standardized testing, and because of this may have been thought of as less intelligent than the other children. However, Autumn explains that Ruhan was the most talented writer she’s known. I feel like this is similar to how I was seen in my narrative. Because of the way I spoke Spanish at the time, people thought of me as less fluent. At the same time, my understanding of the language and my reading ability was on a different level, but that was something they didn’t realize. Growing up, Autumn’s friend was basically forced to speak multiple languages to strive. Similar to this, in Ashley’s narrative, she was, in a way, forced to speak like the other kids so she could fit in. In both Rahul’s and Ashley’s cases, they adapted.

Language can be a struggle. The feeling of being an outsider is tough. Immigrants and Some bilingual people have to look at these struggles on a daily basis and deal with them. In Ashley’s narrative, it was her accent. In my case, it was my trouble with Spanish. Whether it’s an accent or a lower fluency in a language, you can be seen in a negative way because people think you’re different. This can cause some of us to want to change and adapt, like In Ashley’s experience. For others, like Rahul, it can force them to adapt for survival.

Works cited:

Avery, Autumn. Sep 26 2021. City College of New York student paper.

William, Ashley. Sep 26 2021. City College of New York student paper.

“Language.” Passport Photos, by Amitava Kumar, Univ. of Calif. Pr., 2007.