Ruhika, Week 12 - Literacy’s Influence
I do not have a Social Security Number.
Don’t worry, it’s not what you think. A person dependent on someone with a work visa (H-1) gets a dependency visa (H-4) which makes you ineligible for a SSN. I was born in India and do not have a green card yet, so I get to have an ITIN. Lengthy introduction for a single point, but I was born in India. Even though I only lived in India for the first 3 years of my life, Hindi was still my first language. It's my mother tongue, the language I use to converse with my family. This language places me in a position where I feel like I am in a tug-of-war, a push and pull where I lack the control to feel accepted in either culture.
First, let me address the culture behind speaking Hindi. We underestimate the influence language has on your life.
I never was viewed as an “American child” by my classmates, but to Indian uncles and aunties, I was a typical “American child.” Expecting me to be an ABCD (American Born Confused Desi), five-year-old Ruhika’s fluent Hindi would shock adults, becoming the subject of praise and admiration. I stood proud, gloating to the feeble other children who couldn’t speak Hindi. I felt strengthened by my ability to speak Hindi, but as I grew up, it sometimes felt like it held me back.
As the standard was when I was in elementary school, my lack of citizenship required me to skip several classes to learn the basics of English. “Spell this word,” and it’s literally an image of a cat. I was the first person to spell “because” in my kindergarten class. What is going on? I would think. These classes would continue into third grade, despite me already having shown above average literacy skills in English. Not only did I have my class time wasted, I felt so dumbed down, as if I was perceived automatically worse than everyone else because I wasn’t born here. I dedicated myself to reading harder, bigger, longer books, scrolling through dictionaries just for fun. The more I advanced my English, the worse my Hindi got.
Fluent Hindi became Hindi plus some English which became proper Hinglish. All the time I spent on learning what “extrapolate” means in third grade (a useless word for an eight-year-old by the way) meant I could not learn how to read or write Hindi. Now, to this day, at my grand age of seventeen, I am illiterate in the language I speak every day.
Now, my Hindi is no longer impressive. It is honestly just sad. It’s just a symbol of missed potential. My energy spent trying to prove myself to a country which doesn’t even officially want to keep me allowed for me to lose touch of the culture that accepted me from the start. This realization was a recent one, exactly 35 days ago—a memorable number as that was the beginning of my Duolingo journey to become literate in Hindi.
I am proud to say it is working! Able to read and write slowly now, I sent my grandparents my first text in Hindi (no Google Translate). As I keep improving my ability to read and write Hindi, I feel better every single day. I feel like I understand myself and my culture so much better. With the literacy to immerse myself into American culture, it's time to take control over half of my identity.
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| The messages translate to "Grandma, your achaar is very tasty" and "I also love you a lot." |
Literacy holds so much power. It’s power in the real world and power over yourself.
Hi Ruhika, your blog was so relatable. When I was younger, I was also praised for speaking fluent Chinese because of the negative stereotype that American born Chinese kids can not speak their mother tongue. As I grew up I naturally resulted in speaking Chinese less because being in school made me speak English. I have never thought of my first language being Chinese really being a negative thing to me aside from being in ESL during elementary school. Recently, I went on Chinese social media since I can still read it. I realized that different countries really have different perspectives and social norms. Being able to understand multiple languages really enables a person to understand a variety of different cultures and perspectives.
ReplyDeleteHello Ruhika, I loved reading your blog, even though I immigrated to the US a couple years ago, I have acclimated quite fast, Even though I spoke Hindi more temporally but I would indeed still call English my preferred language at 12. But in recent years, like you, the disparity between the two languages have only grown. In my opinion, learning different languages helps provide a person a new lens into the depths of the world and as my Hindi has withered I feel like a part of me has also died. Finally, in your text messages you last word should have been “hun” and not “ho” as the latter refers to you while the initial refers to me.
ReplyDeleteHi Ruhika! I love how you approached this topic. We often take the ability to read and write fluently in a language for granted, and I appreciate how you grabbed our attention for this important subject with “I do not have a Social Security number.” I also liked how you wove that initial sentence about being an immigrant throughout your blog, using it as a vehicle to maintain your point about the power of literacy.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who was never fluent in what was supposed to be her mother tongue (Mandarin), I can’t relate to childhood Ruhika’s experiences of shocking her relatives—but I understand all too well the feeling of being isolated from a culture that makes up such a large part of who you are. It’s great that you’ve taken the initiative to reconnect with your heritage through Duolingo. Congrats on the 35-day streak!
I liked your point about assimilating into American culture by learning and advancing your skill in English; I never noticed how much effort immigrants pour into a country controlled by people that don’t want them—legal or not. It’s especially poignant amidst ICE’s skyrocketing deportations.
Hi Ruhika!
ReplyDeleteI completely related to your blog, since I’m a ABCD myself. Even though I was born in the American state of Ohio, I used to be pretty fluent in my home language, easily convincing people that I was born in India. But after going to second grade, all my fluency went away. It’s really incredible how quickly that skill of being able to speak a language goes away if you don;t speak it day by day. Reading about your experience made me reflect on how much I took fluency for granted when I was younger. It’s really great how you’re relearning Hindi, great blog!
Hi Ruhika! I’m sure you know that I can’t speak Hindi, and unlike you, I never have been able to. I’ve never felt my Hindi skills decline, probably because there’s nowhere to go below ground zero. I’ve also been on my own sort of Duolingo streak—today is my 154th day of ignoring the cries of the recently revived green owl.
ReplyDeleteOn a sadder note, I’ve practically lost my motivation to learn Hindi. I can understand Hindi well—enough to understand relatives and movie scenes. I can actually write in Hindi letters and numbers with proficiency, since my parents made me learn how to when I was in elementary school. The one thing I cannot do is speak in Hindi; whenever I try to, I feel my tongue freeze up and all my memorized vocabulary vanish from my brain. Not being able to speak in Hindi is one of my greatest insecurities, and I often feel isolated from the rest of my family in India.
Seeing the picture of your conversation with your grandmother warmed my heart; that interaction is so cute! I want to take control of the other half of my identity, as you encourage me to do so in your blog—but the task seems so daunting, I’m not sure if I can ever achieve it.