HYPHENATED
I remember growing up as a Taiwanese-American, speaking one language at home and another at school. Now that I'm all grown up, I've come to terms with my hyphenated state, and I can honestly say it offers me more benefits than drawbacks. What those benefits and drawbacks are could be the subject of another blog, I guess.
But I was reminded of one of the potential drawbacks the other day, when a friend of mine who is Chinese and whose husband is Caucasian told me how difficult it has been to teach her son Mandarin. They say ages zero to five are prime language acquisition years for the brain and mouth, so it didn't surprise me when she said she had been trying to teach her son both English and Mandarin. I was surprised, though, to hear that he wasn't taking as well to Mandarin.
It seems that when a furry feline would saunter across the yard, he would point at it and say, "mao," while the other schoolkids would teasingly correct him: "that's not a mao, that's a cat." The constant corrections, combined perhaps with a desire for the boy to be like his dad, who only speaks English, has caused him to shut down when it comes to his Mandarin lessons. Which is understandable but unfortunate: I wish my Mandarin was better. It's quite awful, although to my credit my first language wasn't Mandarin but Taiwanese. Still, my parents sent me to Mandarin school every Friday night when I was a kid, and the combination of not speaking Mandarin at home and my greater desire to play tag during recess ensured that so many lessons and so many years would have little effect on my fluency. But I digress.
Anyway, all this got me thinking, given that my wife is Caucasian, how easily or difficultly our children would take to issues of race, culture, and language. I wonder how they will feel being hyphenated.
I remember growing up as a Taiwanese-American, speaking one language at home and another at school. Now that I'm all grown up, I've come to terms with my hyphenated state, and I can honestly say it offers me more benefits than drawbacks. What those benefits and drawbacks are could be the subject of another blog, I guess.
But I was reminded of one of the potential drawbacks the other day, when a friend of mine who is Chinese and whose husband is Caucasian told me how difficult it has been to teach her son Mandarin. They say ages zero to five are prime language acquisition years for the brain and mouth, so it didn't surprise me when she said she had been trying to teach her son both English and Mandarin. I was surprised, though, to hear that he wasn't taking as well to Mandarin.
It seems that when a furry feline would saunter across the yard, he would point at it and say, "mao," while the other schoolkids would teasingly correct him: "that's not a mao, that's a cat." The constant corrections, combined perhaps with a desire for the boy to be like his dad, who only speaks English, has caused him to shut down when it comes to his Mandarin lessons. Which is understandable but unfortunate: I wish my Mandarin was better. It's quite awful, although to my credit my first language wasn't Mandarin but Taiwanese. Still, my parents sent me to Mandarin school every Friday night when I was a kid, and the combination of not speaking Mandarin at home and my greater desire to play tag during recess ensured that so many lessons and so many years would have little effect on my fluency. But I digress.
Anyway, all this got me thinking, given that my wife is Caucasian, how easily or difficultly our children would take to issues of race, culture, and language. I wonder how they will feel being hyphenated.
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