Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is important. So again, having this sentence starter, this line here is what usually deepens your explanation.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: It's about ten in the morning and I'm in Carol U's grade ten English class at a high school in Calgary. Today they're covering poetry as she teaches at the front of the class, Carol is confident. You can tell she's been doing this for six years. Watching her in action, you wouldn't know that English, her second language.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Shows that you are actually insightful.
[00:00:30] Speaker C: You are actually thoughtful.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: As a child of chinese immigrants, Carol learned how to speak Cantonese first. But as she was in school learning how to read and write English, she didn't get those same lessons with her mother tongue. Now, as an adult, Carol can't read or write Cantonese. As I met up with her in the hallway after class, she says the contrast of teaching her second language while she can't read or write her first is something that weighs on her.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: I think I had perhaps somehow held those thoughts in my head, but not concretely, and it kind of hurts. It's really frustrating that I can't communicate in my own language, my first language, but I am instructing and knowledgeable in this other language, which is a language of colonizers.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Be fluent in English to succeed in life that was instilled in her by her parents, like many other children of immigrants.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: There is definitely this idea because my parents are both immigrants from Hong Kong, that English is king as a language. So them seeing me help other immigrants and other children improve their English just makes them feel like I'm just setting them up for success. And when I talk to them about how problematic it is, for example, themselves being in Hong Kong, having been occupied by the British, they don't see any issue with it. They actually are incredibly thankful the British took over for 100 years because they feel like it elevated Hong Kong, which is really odd when you think about it.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Now Carol is navigating the complexities that come with colonialism and heritage languages, the language of her culture and the language her parents speak. And at the same time, she's figuring out how to bridge that gap for her students, so they have the tools to navigate it, too.
Children of immigrants, first generation Canadians, second generation immigrants almost three in ten children fall into this category, with that number expected to grow quickly over the next decade. The experience of being born in Canada to parents who gave up everything to immigrate here is complex and unique. It changes the way you see and navigate life here in Canada. It's an experience that everyone might not understand. And as a child of immigrants myself. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to make this series.
I'm Karina Zapata, and you're listening to the second Gen, a series focused on the stories of children of immigrants in Canada. This project is powered by Shaw and made possible with a community podcast initiative on the traditional territories, the Blackfoot Confederacy and the people of the treaty seven region in southern Alberta, the Sixica, Picani, Gaina, Sutina, and Iahe Nakota, as well as the Meti people. In this episode, we'll focus on heritage languages, or mother tongues, and how children of immigrants navigate, speaking or not speaking, the language of their home country.
In this episode, Carol and I connected in studio in Calgary, along with Keiko Jarvis, whose mom is from the Philippines. We were also joined by Isabel Stanley, whose mom is from Kenya but also has east indian roots.
[00:03:52] Speaker C: My name's Isabel. I go by she her pronouns, and my mother is east indian, but was born and raised in Kenya, so that's where she immigrated from.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: My name is Carol, and my pronouns are she her. Both my parents immigrated from Hong Kong in the.
[00:04:10] Speaker D: Yeah, my name is Keiko. My pronouns are she, they, and my mom immigrated from the Philippines, and my dad is canadian.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Amazing.
[00:04:19] Speaker E: Thank you so much. So, Isabel, I'm going to start with you. What is your heritage language, and how much of it do you speak?
[00:04:26] Speaker C: So my mother's heritage language is Gujarati, which comes from northern India state in northern India called Gujarat, and she speaks it fluently. My grandparents speak it fluently, but I only know a handful of words and phrases. I'm not even sure if I'm conversational.
[00:04:47] Speaker E: Carol, what about you? What is your heritage language, and how fluent are you?
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Yeah, so my heritage language is Cantonese from the province of Canton.
I definitely inflate it a little bit. I would like to say I'm fluent. That's how I usually put it down in resumes. I would say I'm actually conversational, and I can't read or write, so I also just don't have the foundational words. So sometimes when I pronounce something like awe, it's actually null, and I totally get it wrong every time.
[00:05:16] Speaker E: And, Keiko, what about you?
[00:05:18] Speaker D: Yeah, so my mom speaks Kapampangan and Tagalog, and her first language is Kapampangan, but because Tagalog is more widespread, that's what we kind of go more often. I personally can't speak it. I can't really read it. If I try really hard and I turn my brain on, I can understand the gist of the conversation, but that's about it.
[00:05:38] Speaker E: So it's nice. We have kind of a mixture of perspectives here, which I think really goes to show the different experiences of children, of immigrants here in Canada. I'm kind of in the same boat as Isabel, and, you know, I don't speak Tagalog. That's my parents'main language. But I do understand most of it, some of it. And honestly, for me, it was really interesting because I feel like growing up, I just didn't want to learn it. Like, internalized racism, for me, was a big thing, and it made me feel like speaking the language was embarrassing, and I just didn't want to do it.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: So I'll continue with you.
[00:06:12] Speaker E: Keiko, did you want to learn Tagalog when you were growing up?
[00:06:16] Speaker D: No.
I kind of similar to you where it was really embarrassing and being mixed myself, I am racially ambiguous, so people can't tell. And I didn't really know if I wanted to be a part of the Filipino clicks or if I wanted to be part of the other people. And so I think my solution to that was just stick to English and kind of navigate through that.
[00:06:41] Speaker E: I totally understand where you're coming from. And, Carol, for you, you speak conversational Cantonese. How did you learn it?
[00:06:49] Speaker A: It was just by talking to my parents. I would actually say Cantonese is my first language. I remember my first experience at school. I didn't understand what the teacher was saying to me, and I wasn't coded as an english language learner either. So my first grade teacher actually called me the r word because she just didn't feel like I was understanding her or the assignments. And she didn't really take time to understand why that was the case. But, yeah, it was through my parents, and I definitely took a lot of pride in it, but I definitely have a confusing relationship with it, too. So I remember just being at school and just being really othered very different, me and my friend both being cantonese speakers. Everyone else is all caucasian. Until one day they decide to ask us to teach them Cantonese. And I remember being really excited, like, oh, my God, this is my moment. I'll be popular after this, and they'll really understand me. Maybe they'll even be able to talk to me. And of course, the first words they usually ask are the swears. And of course, we taught them that. And when I came home and told my mom, she was like, you know, you should never give them the weapons to hurt you with, right? I'm like, they won't do that. And then, sure enough, the next day at school, they were calling me those names, too. I'm like, okay, that was a misstep. But, yeah, it's like a weird experience. I still am happy I can speak it, but it's a contentious relationship. Yeah.
[00:08:06] Speaker E: I mean, I'm so sorry to hear that.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: That's really awful.
[00:08:08] Speaker E: And I feel like that really goes to show how powerful words are and how powerful languages. What was that like for you growing up?
As you mentioned, your parents really put that pride in you to speak this language, but it was kind of the other way when you were at school and with other people.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it was very confusing. Like, I felt, oh, I have this secret language, first of all, where I can talk about people and they can't even tell because people definitely do that when they're bilingual. But at the same time, that experience with the classmates really challenged that. And I think it took a while to get back from it because definitely those moments, I felt shame. And I know definitely, even growing up as an adult, I see my adults, my adult parents interacting with people. I always feel a sense of this twinge of embarrassment that their accent holds them back, that people treat them differently. The minute I step in, people treat us differently, and I hate that.
[00:09:05] Speaker D: Can I add to that? Because my mom, she works in healthcare, and for a really long time, she started a new job when the hospital down south opened up, and for years, they all hated her. And my mom is like, she can speak with English. She is conversational, she can read. She writes. She's fluent in English, but her coworkers continually put her down because she had an accent. I don't think she has an accent. But they were like, you have an accent. You're stupid. You don't belong here. To the point where HR had to get involved. My mom has been with AHS for, like, I think it's 30 years now. And for me, watching her go through that, I was like, let me just come to the floor. Let me just talk to them, because that's my mom. And how are you going to be so rude about somebody who speaks another language when they probably don't even speak English properly? And when you said that embarrassment and stepping in, that really resonated with me.
[00:10:04] Speaker E: Do you think that played into why you didn't want to learn how to speak Tagalog growing up?
[00:10:09] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. Because it's embarrassing. And I guess, like, I grew up in the northeast, it's very ethnically saturated, I guess you could say. But there's such a wide range of what the experience is, because there's people who we say are fob fresh off the boat, and they're very super Filipino. But then there's the people who've been here for a really long time and have already separated themselves so much from the culture, and they don't want to be a part of that. And for me, not knowing if I want to be with the fob kids or if I want to be with the cooler Filipino kids, it was such a struggle. And I think that's part of the reason why I just didn't want to deal with it. And I made friends who weren't even Filipino.
[00:10:54] Speaker E: Yeah, that's so fair. I want to go to you, Isabelle. What is your experience? How interested were you in learning Gujarati when you were growing up?
[00:11:03] Speaker C: When my mom began to teach us Gujarati, me and my sister, we were quite young, like, just learning English.
So I don't actually remember a lot of the conscious decision to not learn it, but just know. My dad only speaks English. He's white. He grew up in Toronto. And I guess that's what I was accustomed to. And so I was stubborn, and I refused to have my mother speak to me in her language, and she got frustrated and gave up by the time I was old enough to comprehend my racial background and that influence regarding the people surrounding me, I don't know if it was internalized racism to choose not to speak my language or not. I didn't have a lot of gujarati community surrounding me. I had my family, and that was it.
And even in my adulthood, there's a lot of Gujaratis who are very quietly condescending. It's bad enough that my mom didn't come from India directly. And then the fact that I don't speak Gujarati, it's like you're barely. Like, you can't even call yourself that. So that's really difficult. And a big reason why my mom didn't give us access to the community was because growing up, she felt othered by her own community as well. Being dark skinned, coming from Kenya, there's a lot of caste system BS, and there's a lot of just misogyny. So it was unfortunate for her because she felt mistreated by people outside and within her community. And I think a part of her wanted to protect us from that. But in doing that, we also have very little insight to our heritage. So the language plays into that as well.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: I feel like it's so tough as.
[00:13:04] Speaker E: Children of immigrants because obviously, the younger you are, the easier it is for you to learn your language, but when you are resistant to it, when you see those experiences when you're young. And for me, I just refuse to learn it. It's hard because as you get older, when you finally reach that point, like you said, where you finally realize your racial background, you can start feeling that pride in it. It's almost too late for you to learn it. So what is it like for you now as an adult to not speak your heritage language?
[00:13:33] Speaker C: Yeah, it's honestly one of the biggest regrets of my life.
And it's especially difficult because I find it's hard to find people to practice with and hard to find people who will teach you. I have a cousin out in Ontario who's fully Gujarati. I don't know if her parents came directly from India or if they came from East Africa as well, but she said that she had a gujarati teacher who was extremely condescending towards her and made her feel othered in her own community.
And she stopped wanting to learn because her own teacher was making her feel like an outsider.
So that's disheartening to hear, especially being mixed race, because I've already dealt with that for the majority of my life. The idea that I don't fit into one box or another and that people won't accept me one way or another. To know that my fully indian cousins are experiencing such similar things, it's hard to want to put yourself in a position to try and not, well, maybe excel, but just be more in tune with your community.
[00:14:53] Speaker E: Do you relate to that, Keiko?
[00:14:54] Speaker D: Yeah. Oh my God. Absolutely. I feel like being mixed as well. I said before, it's just like, do I want to be one way or do I want to be the other? And a lot of my, especially my early twenty s, I didn't know what I wanted. I still don't really feel that connection. And seeing the diaspora and seeing my family back in the Philippines and them wanting to be able to converse. And when are you coming back? And also, have you learned Tagalog? Have you learned kapapanga? And we want to talk to you and I want to be a part of that. But there's a part of me that is still feeling the guilt, still feeling the shame. And me now is like, okay, well, how do I get over the guilt and the shame to really immerse myself in the language, immerse myself in the culture and find where I belong as I am, as a mixed race person who loves who I am and loves my culture in all different ways.
And what does that look like? Now as an adult.
[00:15:51] Speaker E: So, yeah, I get it.
[00:15:51] Speaker D: It sucks. It's a really hard place to be in when you don't feel like you belong one way or the other.
[00:15:57] Speaker E: Carol, you're in a bit of a different boat because you are conversational in Cantonese.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: But what is it like for you.
[00:16:04] Speaker E: To not know how to read or write Cantonese?
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Well, I can say, even though I am conversational, you might think, like, oh, she might just feel a little bit better. But nope, definitely not.
I feel still very inadequate because I know the moment I go to Hong Kong, for example, when I talk to taxi drivers, they immediately switch to English, and I continue in Cantonese, but they hear the accent and they always ask, oh, where are you from? And sometimes they'll throw in a condescending, like, oh, your cantonese is actually kind of good for someone not from here. So it's so interesting because we're in these communities that sometimes are minoritized, marginalized, but they police themselves of one another so much as. Well. It's like so much gatekeeping. You're just not enough. Or you're not enough this. And they know how it feels to be other than just. They do it to others, too.
But, yeah, with my relatives, they'll just say, oh, your accent's really good for someone who's not born here. It's just never really enough. And I do find it frustrating because if I go to Hong Kong, China, I can't even enter stuff in the gps. I can just sound things out. So it's a very od experience. It's like I'm blind to half the experience there because I can't read the signs.
[00:17:21] Speaker E: What I'm hearing here is that there are just a lot of really complex feelings that come with heritage languages as children of immigrants. Feelings of inadequacy, as you mentioned, embarrassment, guilt. I can relate, especially being in Canada. It feels like knowing your heritage language is, like, maybe one of the few ways that you feel like you can really connect to your culture, I guess. Carol, to continue with you, how does not knowing how to read or write Cantonese impact your cultural identity?
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Yeah, you just don't feel fully chinese, I think. Especially when, oftentimes, people talk about how a lot of asian languages do derive from chinese characters, like a lot of east asian cultures, I have no access to any of them. Like Japanese, Korean, even Vietnamese. I just can't even.
So sometimes, for example, where I work, sometimes there are people from other asian countries, and other coworkers will make the assumption, oh, well, you're asian. You're chinese, there must be some Thai. You must be able to speak something to them. I just can't. You are reminded over and over again that you're a fraud. But I will still say I still think it's like a superpower. Even if you can't really speak the language, I think it's still awesome.
[00:18:32] Speaker E: And I'm also curious about how not knowing your heritage language or maybe not reading or writing, it impacts your relationship with your family, who maybe don't speak English. So, Isabel, let's start with you. How does that impact your relationship with your family?
[00:18:49] Speaker C: When my mom immigrated, she immigrated with her parents and all of her siblings. She has five, so they're all bilingual or multilingual. Now, some of her siblings don't speak Gujarati fluently anymore, but there are family members back home, quote unquote, either in East Africa or in India or even in the UK, who only speak Gujarati. And so I will never be able to converse with them if I don't learn my heritage language. And a lot of them come from my grandparents generation, and that generation is slowly leaving this world, and so a lot of the information and resources and treasures that they keep will die with them. And any sort of little conversation you can have about anything is valuable in preserving that heritage. So it is a huge disadvantage not being able to converse with them. And my time is limited. Like, the more I sleep on not learning the language for myself, the less time I'll have with these elders in my community that hold so much knowledge that will only be kept for so long.
[00:20:08] Speaker D: Yeah, if I could add to that, of course. So you're talking about your elders and my grandmother. I'm really blessed and really lucky. I live in a very big, multigenerational house, which includes my grandparents. And my grandmother has gotten really sick lately, like, very much on the decline and in and out of the hospital all summer long. It was really hard, and we're kind of opposites in where she understands English. Like, I understand Tagalog. So one thing about being Filipino is that the hospital is full of Filipinos. She had no issues trying to talk to the nurses. We always felt secure if we weren't there, which we were trying to be there 24 hours a day. She was never alone.
But when non filipino nurses or healthcare aides or doctors would come in and it would just be me sitting with them, it would be so hard to translate, because all I could do is say the same things that they're saying, just louder because she's older. And then, on the other hand, of that she has lived this grand life that is coming to an end. And how I feel so bad about not being able to ask her those questions and ask her about her life and ask about what she remembers from her young adulthood. When she was my age, was she like me? How alike are we? And to not be able to have those conversations, knowing that her health is declining and she's really on the way out. Love you, Nanai. But it's just the reality of the situation. It's a really hard reality to be faced with. And it was a big conversation topic between me and my sister and all my cousins who all live in this big house, because it was scary and it was hard and it was sad to come to that realization that, oh, my God, time. They're going to die. And they are the keepers of knowledge and culture, especially in Canada, where it's so far away from the homeland. So, yeah, I really resonated with what you were saying.
[00:22:07] Speaker E: What about you, Carol? How does that impact your relationship with your family?
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Well, I can still converse with them, but because I can't read or write, I do wonder if I have kids one day who's going to really teach them the language. And I would want them to teach the language, my kids, to learn it properly, learn the characters that the sounds belong to. Also, picking a chinese name, people don't actually pick chinese names just based on your english name. Like, each character has so much meaning, and I wouldn't know those meanings. Those are lost to me. I just know sounds, honestly.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:42] Speaker E: Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Carol, about future generations, because that was actually something I wanted to ask about. Just a question for you all. Just, I guess, how important is it for, you know, younger generations, whether that's your nieces or your nephews, know, your future kids, if you want any, to know their heritage language?
[00:23:02] Speaker D: I don't know if I want kids. And I think that one of the things about being mixed is that I don't know what the ethnicity of my future partner is going to be. And I think that if I were to have kids with somebody who was Filipino, I think it'd be a little bit easier to pass on that language. But how do you teach a child who's, like, a quarter of Filipino, how do you show them that this is, like, really matter? Like this matters and that you should really learn this? Because it's something that I deeply regret.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: I guess. For me, it just has to happen. I don't know. For me, even if my partner wasn't Chinese, I would love the fact that the child and I would have a secret language where we can just gossip about my partner all the time and make them feel excluded. I think that's just the point I've gotten to because I've known friends parents where they were really accommodating, where if one parent didn't speak the language, the other parent or partner wouldn't either. And I'm like, just no, I'm just going to do away with that entirely. How I'm going to do that, though, is different. And I also accept that it is hard to sell younger generations on learning this new language when their friends aren't doing it.
[00:24:11] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know if my partner is going to be Gujarati or going to be able to speak Gujarati. I also wonder about how my parents chose to raise us in a retrospective sense.
When my mom tried learning or tried teaching us, was that a choice that she made that she discussed with my father because they discussed so many other aspects of raising us? And then again, there was such a large part of my life where I wanted to date people who were from any ethnicity that wasn't mine. And so then that plays a role as well. Does my partner speak another language? Does my partner want to teach that kid this language as well? By the time I have kids, am I going to be able to speak Gujarati? There's a lot of factors at play.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: That was Carol Yu, Keiko Jarvis, and Isabel Stanley sharing their experiences with their mother tongues and how that affects their relationships with their culture and family.
I'm Karina Zapata and this is the second gen. Thanks for listening, and be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to hear our other episodes on mental health and the realities of being the eldest child of immigrants.
This project is made possible with a community podcast initiative and powered by Shaw. You can hear more about the community podcast initiative at thepodcastudio, Ca.
