Erin Millican

Intercultural Communication 2150

Paper 1

I grew up in a small town in northern New Jersey. By small I mean the town is only 2.8 square
miles. It was so small the city didnt even have a school bus system. This led to the adventure
of walking to and from school every day. Being New Jersey, however, it was quite densely
populated. At the time there were approximately 20,000 people living in North Plainfield. I
attended public school, which was very racially diverse. During the time I was a student, the
student body of the high school was 40% white, 40% Hispanic, 10% black, and the remaining
students were Asian, Pacific Islander, and other races. Even with such a racial diversity the
primary language was English.
Despite the experience of living in a melting pot town, I spent the first few years of my life on a
dead end street surrounded exclusively by white neighbors. Amongst the neighbors there existed
diversity unrelated to race. There was a mentally retarded boy who lived 6 houses up the street.
Bike Mike, as we called him, loved to ride his bike all day long. There were older
heterosexual empty nesters and younger heterosexual couples with children. The street had its
share of different religions practiced, as well.
North Plainfield had three elementary schools which fed into the junior high and high school. I
attended Stony Brook, which catered to the poorer families.


Both of my parents worked and were rarely, if ever, home after school let out. I was what is
lovingly referred to as a latch-key kid. This meant I had to find a way to keep myself busy and
entertain myself. An empty house on the dead end street wasnt nearly as fun as a friends
house. Fortunately, I had many friends who lived a few blocks away from school and I would
play at their houses until my parents came home.
Most of my friends parents also worked, especially the single mothers. Despite them working I
was able to meet and talk to their parents over the course of our friendships. I picked up on
certain nuances amongst the different ethnicities. My Hispanic friends parents were very
affectionate and talkative. They always tried to feed me and they were offended if I didnt
partake.
There was one play date that stood out in my mind and I still think about it. I was over
Christinas house playing with her and her little sister. We were having a jolly old time. It was a
Friday, and we decided we absolutely had to have a sleep over, so we set about asking our
parents for permission. I phoned my Dads cell phone and got the green light, but we had to wait
until Christinas mom came home from work to ask her. I had never met Christinas mother
before. She arrived home and Christina asked her about the sleepover in Spanish, and afterward
I was informed that it had been arranged. Her mother didnt offer me more than a mumbled
greeting, a smile, and a nod. I was perplexed. She didnt seem very affectionate like most of the
other Hispanic mothers I knew. She was almost cold toward me. Then it dawned on methis
woman didnt speak English. By this point, I was used to hearing Spanish being spoken, but it
had never affected me. Half of my friends were bilingual. The parents of my bilingual friends
who Id met so far were also bilingual. It had never been the case that someone I knew who
spoke Spanish couldnt speak English also. Christinas mother was born in Ecuador. She


immigrated to the United States to live with other family members so that her children could
have a better life. For whatever reason, she hadnt learned English.
Ive never told anyone about my experience, or really let on that I was taken aback by it. It was
neither a positive nor a negative experienceit was neutral. At the time I filed the experience
away so that we could get back to important things, like playing. As the years have passed, Ive
had more than one occasion to relive the experience. Ive had other very similar experiences and
have formed some opinions on the situation. Initially, I was perplexed and full of questions.
Why would you not want to learn English? Everyone that I know, in fact the majority of the
population of the United States, speaks English. Was she uncomfortable with the language?
Couldnt her daughters help her? How does she talk to Christinas teachers? What does she do
when someone calls on the phone and they only speak English? At once, a deluge of
impracticalities and hypothetical situations poured into my English-thinking mind.
It seemed to me that it would be significantly easier to communicate and understand your
surroundings if you could understand the common tongue. I felt like she was limiting herself in
her possible interactions. Limiting the types of jobs she could get (though she might have been
illegal, so that was a major limitation). I can understand being proud of where you are from. I
can see how people may feel alone in a foreign country. I can also see how people would want
to speak their foreign language to feel more at home and connected to other people who are like
them. Unfortunately in my eyes it feels like people are segregating themselves more and
thinking too short-term.
This led to a paradigm shift of how I would want to approach living in a foreign country. Ive
vowed that if I ever find myself living in a foreign country I will put in the extra effort to learn


the mother tongue. I would stay up late every night until I had a grasp on the language. I do
think that it is a hindrance not to learn the common language of the country you emigrate to. At
the time I was ambivalent about the necessity to learn the language that I spoke. Nowadays I tend
to have a negative opinion of someone who is unwilling to learn the common language, because
I feel so strongly about this due to the standards I would hold myself to. Language opens doors,
and not learning how to communicate where you live is self-imprisonment. In my opinion
failing to learn to communicate forces a negative and unnecessary difference in a society. The
encounter I had with Christinas mother 20 years ago sowed a seed in my mind that has led me to
explore and decide the way I feel about using language to communicate.