Some people use language to define part of their identity. For me, language defines a small part of who I am and how I grew up. My life began around two languages: English and Chinese. The more my life progressed, the more English weeded out my “native” tongue. Chinese remains more personal in identifying who I am because it provides background to my family and life. With Chinese, I feel a connection between the language and my identity. I view English as only an adaptation to communicate with the people around me. I do not speak Chinese to speak with others at all. To me, Chinese only represents a way to establish part of my identity while English does not.
I was exposed to both English and Chinese ever since I was born. My parents, both Hong Kong emigrants, primarily spoke Chinese for the first few years of my life (and my siblings’ too). Every day our mother would yell the same commands to us such as “brush your teeth,””wash your face,””eat dinner,””go to sleep,”and “wake up.”If we did something bad, my mom would yell at us in both English and Chinese. You could tell that she was really angry when she started using Chinese; her speech and expressions became louder and faster. However, I spoke far more English and almost always used it to communicate with my family. I would usually respond with English to anything that my parents would say in Chinese. I knew what the Chinese meant, but I did not know how to reverse the translation. That is usually the case whenever any Chinese person speaks to me.
A lot of relatives on my father’s side had also immigrated to the United States and settled in the same region. Whenever a first generation relative had a birthday or when a big holiday came around, our families would gather in one house and have giant dinner parties that would ending late into the night. All the immigrants usually spoke Chinese (in loud expressive shouting no less) while the young children spoke English to each other. If there were something one of the adults wanted us to do, they would say it to us in Chinese first and then English if we did not understand. The children would almost always speak English to the adults. As years passed by, I noticed that a lot of the Chinese is dropping among our family and that English is starting to become more dominant.
My cousin once noted that the oldest child in a family always knew the most Chinese while the youngest knew the least Chinese. My assumption is that it is a result from being a minority in a largely English speaking society and the need to adapt. Since no one lived near any Chinese speaking community, English was the only language that anyone else spoke. The oldest child would be exposed first to language outside the home and would bring that language back and spread it in-house. As younger siblings arose, the presence of English takes the effect of a snowball rolling down a hill. I have noticed that there is almost no more Chinese in my house. The only people who speak it are our parents. Our adoption of English has been an adaptation to society’s need for a language spoken by the majority.
Even though English is used between me, my siblings, and my friends, we still resort to Chinese to say some things we cannot in English. If there were some word or concept that my friends could not express in English, they would use Chinese. Offensive phrases or words would also be translated to Chinese rather than being said in English. English was not necessarily a foreign language when we were growing up, but others who did not understand where we were coming from saw our language as foreign. This usually led to taunting and isolation, and Chinese was used as a way to preserve identity among a community that did not understand. This is probably why most communities contain just one large ethnic population.
The community I grew up in is largely Irish. The people there spoke with the r-dropping feature that most Bostonians have. I never picked up the r-dropping feature in my speech. I was taught Standard English since kindergarten and learned how to pronounce words and enunciate. I did not hear the r-dropping for a big part of my life nor did I ever pick it up in my speech. I was not aware of the feature until a teacher in school had pointed it out. After listening more carefully, I began to hear it. One of my childhood friends classified the Boston accent more like an attitude. It is a way to assertively establish and maintain a separate identity (especially against all those tourists and college kids) and to show off how deeply rooted we are in our home city. This is no different than how my family uses Chinese to establish ourselves among those who are different.
The absence of Chinese in our family feels like a loss of identity. The dominance of English in our family grows with each day, even if we sometimes speak it with choppy grammar or with the r-dropping feature. My cousins have tried reintroducing Chinese into their new families. They taught their spouses all about our extensive family, about our customs, and some Chinese phrases to help them understand us. The children have already developed the brain patterns to decipher English, even though Chinese is used here and there to preserve identity and cultural background. My cousin’s daughter once used English to correct her mother for naming something red in Chinese. Even though she completely understands the Chinese word for red, she does not acknowledge that Chinese is part of her identity.
My identity is tied to my origin — Hong Kong. I visited Hong Kong twice, once when I was very young and a second time when I was 15. I spoke English both times I visited, but I definitely spoke more Chinese my first time (due to my early upbringing). I did not speak any Chinese my second time because I did not know how to say the things I needed to say. I felt isolated even though I was walking among my roots. Even though there was a language barrier, the workaround was to use English. I was both surprised and disappointed to discover that everyone knew English. The experience felt cheapening but it sure helped a lot. Most people (even the tourists) could tell that I was a tourist, but they still assumed that I was a native to Hong Kong and that I belonged there with them. English was a way to fit in with others who were different, and Chinese was a way to fit in with those who shared the same background.
Chinese is the language I use to identify myself, and English is the language I use to communicate. English is a tool, a way to find a solution in communication. I do not consider it or the r-dropping to be part of my identity. In the past, I have been accused by one person who said I was not Chinese because I didn’t act like it (nor did I speak it). I guess to him “Chinese” meant acting more like the mix of pop culture on television, reciprocating the Western influence in the Eastern hemisphere, and speaking a slight variant of the African American Vernacular English. To me, being Chinese is about the culture, the customs, and the history. That is what the language represents to me. It feels natural because of the connection I have had since childbirth. It is a portal to the past and everything that is Chinese about me. That is something that English could never do. With English, I can only observe the connections in the present with the people around me.
