You know the old saying: You don't learn to appreciate your parents until you become a parent yourself. I think that's somewhat true. In reflecting on/writing about raising a multilingual child, I've been thinking a lot about being raised bilingual. My parents never made it a big point to force us to speak Chinese; it just was what it was. We never really questioned it. Mandarin was my first language and it connected me to my immediate family members. We were very privileged because my sister and I got to spend a lot of time in Taiwan, where my grandparents lived. We spent summers there and thus gained a lot of fluency through immersion in a Chinese environment.
I wonder how my my parents and other first generation parents pondered over their children's language acquisition; how much they thought about issues of assimilation or retaining their cultural heritage. I also think for second and third generation Americans, it may be a more conscious decisions in most cases to raise their child knowing a language outside of English.
One of the drawbacks I didn't mention in being a bilingual child, where my first language was not English, is that when I started school, I became really quiet. At home, I would talk, but at school, I rarely said anything unless the teacher asked me something or unless another kid engaged me in a real way (not just talking at me). I'm sure a big part is my personality, but this silence thing reverberated throughout my schooling years. Even in college, I always felt like by the time I could formulate words to participate in a discussion, the discussion had already moved on.
Continue reading "Raising a Multilingual Child (Part 2)"
Posted by Momo at 10:22 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
You know you've wondered about it.
After watching umpteen sickly-sweet videos like the one above, in which the Jon & Kate Plus 8 lead couple indicates that their meet-cute was just plain love at first sight, you gotta wonder what's been edited out.
Continue reading "Kate Gosselin's Asian Fetish"
Posted by Claire at 12:51 AM | Comments (31) | TrackBack (0)
See the title of the post? Very simple and to the point! If only raising a multilingual child were that simple and straightforward.
I've been thinking and reading a lot about this topic. I think about how I was raised bilingual and how empowering being bilingual has been for me. Sure, there have been some setbacks, such as feeling really behind in college literature classes and not really learning proper grammar until my 20s. And getting words mixed up and such, and accidentally speaking to an English speaker in Mandarin.
I've been reflecting on why being bilingual experience has been so positive and rewarding. I think first and foremost, I was able to and am still able to connect to a different generation. As a child, it was mostly my immediate family, like my grandparents. Nowadays, it's anyone who is first generation. I've used Mandarin to translate things for random strangers. I've used Mandarin, more than one would think, in my journalism work. Because I have had such a powerful experience, I want to pass this along to my own child.
But saying it (here, in the post) is a lot easier than actually practicing it.
Continue reading "Raising a Multilingual Child"
Posted by Momo at 12:12 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
It's May, peoples! It's Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! This year is also the 20th Anniversary of the publication of Amy Tan's classic Asian American immigrant novel, The Joy Luck Club.
We have a love/hate relationship with that book. Love because it was our first foray into the mainstream of American fiction, a moment of broad self-acknowledgment many Asian Americans remember with fondness. Hate for many reasons: because it focused on women to the detriment of men (for a perspective, see Alvin's comments here); because it proposed an immigrant arc similar to that of Europeans, glossing over the continuing issues Asian immigrants have in this country; because it was so successful it coerced a generation of Asian American novelists to Joy Luck their way into a writing career.
So, to express our ambivalent Happy Birthday, here's a bouquet of tiny immigration tales. These are 300-word, true stories, from real Asian Americans, that complicate and argue with the story The Joy Luck Club tells. The complete awesomeness, vitality, and real diversity of these stories is exactly what my problem with the Joy Lucking of Asian American writing is about. We always knew these stories were out there; I just didn't know we could get so many great ones in such a short time.
(My only caveat is that we didn't get enough stories from men. Imagine how much broader the range would be if we had! Maybe next year ...)
Enjoy(luck)!
Continue reading "The Joy Luck Hub Blog Carnival: Asian American Immigrant Stories!"
Posted by Claire at 7:37 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
So, it's been over a week since rapper/singer M.I.A. sang at the Grammy's on her due date. A few days later, she gave birth (I admit, I obsessively checked Google news the following days to see if she had her baby). It seems that though there are lots of bloggers and entertainment writers out there obsessed with the news of her baby, her polka dot/lady bug outfit, and her bravery, some in the news establishment quickly shifted to her politics.
M.I.A. is the daughter of a leader of the Tamil independence movement in Sri Lanka, and has referenced it in her songs and videos. The New York Times did a piece about how she's viewed in Sri Lanka (where Tamils are a minority), which according to the piece, is not very highly. This isn't the first time people have confused her with promoting terrorism and we all know she had some visa issues (to the U.S.) a few years back (though she now lives in NY). It's all whack. Here's a good post from the Village Voice in response to the New York Timespiece.
But since we are obsessed with M.I.A., the new topic is whether she will perform at the Oscars (she's nominated for the song "O Saya" from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack). I don't know -- performing big bellied is cool, but rolling her out onto a bed or performing via hologram? Honestly, I hope she just takes it easy.
I have always liked M.I.A. though I don't enjoy all of her music. She is clearly talented and I like what she's said about art and politics. How many times have I listened to songs with a good beat, only to realized how f-ed up the lyrics are? All the lyrics that demean women, especially in the radio rap hits. Even M.I.A.'s co-conspirator in the Grammy performance, Kanye West, has some awful sexist lyrics (though ironically, he spoke out against domestic violence a la Chris Brown/Rihanna). His music sounds great but he needs a good writer! Anyway, I'm saying this because M.I.A. is the opposite -- a lot of her music is fun has good beats and her lyrics are good (think "Pull up the people/pull up the poor"). Congrats to the new mama. Her Grammy performance was a big WOW but I think giving birth is a much bigger accomplishment.
Continue reading "M.I.A. and Salma Hayek"
Posted by Momo at 12:33 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
Ready to have a good cry? Pretty much everybody does when they see this, according to Broadsheet.
Please do embed and post this video of all these lovely couples and families who will lose their rights to each other if Ken Starr's legal brief seeking to nullify the marriages that happened in California before Prop 8 isn't stopped.
Posted by Claire at 6:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Here are some of T's (T is my almost two-year-old tot) favorite videos these days:
A video with a nice message -- the ending always makes me teary-eyed.
Jay Chou. Nuff said. But is it just me or are Jay's videos getting less emo and more hip-hop these days (and by the way, I have no idea what emo is but I just used it in a sentence!)? By the way, the title means "Listen to your mama."
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