I was only 2 years old when I came to America with my parents.  They thought it was best if I learned English first then my native language. My parents didn’t speak English back then, maybe my dad spoke some basic English. I learned English from watching T. V and my uncle. I caught on pretty quickly since everything is in English, but my parents had taught me some words in Bangla which is my native language; I wasn’t able to speak in full sentences though. It wasn’t until kindergarten when I learned my native language when I went back to Bangladesh to visit for 2 months. Until then, I couldn’t even pronounce my last name correctly. But when I learned my native language, it was difficult for me to speak English; it was like I forgot how to speak English. School was hard at first, I stuttered and mixed a lot of Bangali words with English. Eventually, as I settled in I learned how to speak English fluently again, but I had to speak my native language at home with my parents. I had to balance and learn how to speak both languages and balance both cultures.

Balancing both cultures was very difficult since the morals between western cultures were so different from my parent’s morals. My parents are traditional and very old fashioned. They expect their children to obey and never go against their morals because they think it’s the only right ones. This had made me have a hard time making friends, or questioning higher authority because I always thought adults were never wrong and you can never go against an adult. They also told me who I can be friends with and how other specific races were “bad” and not like us, so they would only influence me to do horrible things. At the time I was young. I believed everything they said. They installed this fear inside of me, and every time I would try to do something that my parents didn’t want me to do, this loud voice in my head would consciously stop me. Over time, that voice in my head became distant and since elementary school, I have become “rebellious,” according to my parents. And a big part of that was the environment I was in at school. I was in a diverse setting and I had to speak for myself. I guess that made me question my parent’s morals because they made little sense. But I don’t think my parents were wrong because they were only teaching me what they were taught.

My parent’s English has gotten way better since we first moved here but they still speak with a heavy accent and broken English. I still need to translate things for them from time to time. Because of this I always had difficulty with reading comprehension, spelling, and writing. Not that I wouldn’t understand the reading, I did, but I wasn’t able to be a critical thinker and make inferences about the story. Therefore, my reading and writing grades were always lower than my math and science grades. Every time I used to look at a reading package it looked all jumbled and letters were just floating, which discouraged me to read. Even though my mom made me read a lot of books because I wasn’t good at reading, it never interested me. I was more of a math and science person because there were fewer words and less room for error. 

I was also an ESL student until the fourth grade which is a special program that gives special privileges because English is their second language. Funny thing is that English was never my second language, it was my first. I never knew why I was put into this program in the first place or when I just remember from 2nd grade that I got special treatment than the other kids, and I was in a slightly slow class. And the only way out of this program is by taking this exam to determine if I was a native English speaker. This is very unfortunate because to this day I can only read, write, and speak English, while I can barely speak my native language. I kind of sacrificed learning and sort of accepting my culture so I can fit into a one that doesn’t want me to be part of theirs. It wasn’t until middle school where I got better in reading and writing and learned to manage both languages better, and where I felt more comfortable writing and wrote better. But I still can’t speak my native language fluently, I speak Bengali when it’s necessary, and with my parents and family members, it’s also broken and combined with a lot of English. I’m not proud of it when I’m at a family gathering or a cultural event. People mock me because of my Bengali they think I sound to white, and my western culture thinks I’m too brown.

My parent’s broken English has affected me, but it affected my parents more. People have a hard time understanding what my parents are saying and they do not take them seriously. I always hear people mocking my parents for their broken English. What they don’t realize is that even if my parents don’t understand them mocking them, I do. There was this one specific moment where my parents went to the dentist’s office and they bought us with them. My mom was telling the reception lady about the problems she has been having and how she hasn’t gone to the dentist for a while. Her exact words were, “[pointing to her teeth] Here hurt, and when brushing teeth blood [showing hands movements], when eating cold food hurting. I have no come to dentist for 5-6 years.” 

They took her information and bought her in. When she was in I heard the nurses or assistants imitating her accent and broken language and hysterically laughing. And I just sat in this chair listening to it all but didn’t dare to stand up to them because of the language that’s spoken at home, it’s difficult for me to speak in public, cause I think people will mock me the same way they mock my parents even though I speak “standard” English with no accent.

Even now I have trouble speaking in front of a crowd my anxiety takes over and my palms are sweating, my stomach feels horrible, and I stutter on easy words in sentences. It is a little better from the form and how I’m more comfortable speaking to other people and making more friends but my public speaking in front of classmates or an enormous crowd. The big part of this was the way my parents got mocked because of their accent and their way of speaking English. That loud voice started playing again in my head except it wasn’t to obey my parents; it was what other people had to say. Nobody mocked me yet but I still felt the pain because my parents had to go through it daily. My story is so similar to Amy Tan’s story in Mother’s Tongue, I can relate to what she went through because I go through something Identical. This goes to show that so many other people go through the same thing that I go through. Even though my parents speak broken English, I’m so grateful for the life that they’d given me, and my parents’ broken English always reminds me of my roots and where I’m originally from.  It doesn’t make them any less important than anyone who speaks regular Standard English.

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