Sara Le

Language and Identity Rough Draft

Dr. Rand

UWRT-1104-016

12 February 2020

Language and Identity is something that we use to express and describe ourselves. My

past experiences have really defined who I grew up to be today. I think that because of that I am

more accepting of not only my culture but others as well. Growing up as Asian-American in

America, I would say that language affects me and my identity daily. I can speak English and

Vietnamese but english was my first language. I was taught Vietnamese at a very young age but I

couldn’t speak it as well as I could with english. When I was younger, I would always speak

Vietnamese when I was communicating with my family members because they were immigrants

and could only speak very little english. I never thought anything of it because Vietnamese was

their home language and so it wasn’t weird that they weren’t speaking english.

I grew up in a generally “white” area and it didn’t take long for me to notice that I was

different. I saw that there weren't that many people that looked like me or could speak the same

language as me. It made me stand out a lot and as a kid you just want to fit in with the others.

Back then I feel like others opinions had a bigger impact on you than it would now. Also being a

kid, you listen to what people have to say and their opinions about you start to matter. Around

that age, you are still figuring out who or what you are in the world and so being different from

others made me feel the most insecure. Being immersed in an english speaking environment, I
started to speak more english and less vietnamese. I didn’t think too much of it at the time

because more people around me were speaking english and not vietnamese.

Being one of the first generation immigrants in my family, I would say that it was weird

seeing two different cultures mixing together. For example, the type of food we ate or just the

way we interacted with one another. Of course being in a country where you are different from

everyone else made me insecure in what I was. I wanted to be like the others. I would get

embarrassed when I would be out with my family because they would be speaking vietnamese

and people would just look at us weirdly. My parents own a nail salon and they have a lot of

workers that are also vietnamese and their english is not that good and so everyone just

communicates by speaking vietnamese. I noticed that whenever they are working on a client and

are speaking to their coworkers in vietnamese the client would feel slightly uncomfortable

because the client would assume that the workers are talking about them. I think that everyone

just assumes that whenever someone speaks in a different language in front of you, you just

automatically assume that they are talking about you. I didn’t like how they thought that and so

whenever addressing the workers I would always speak in english because I did not want the

clients to feel like anyone was talking badly about them. I think that this had a negative effect on

my life because I didn’t want to be or speak vietnamese and so I would speak in english to my

family. That meant that at home I would code switch between english and vietnamese when I

was communicating with my family. Doing so had a negative effect on my home language

because I soon forgot some of my vietnamese language.

 Now that I’m older, I regret that I did not allow myself to be more in touch with my

vietnamese side. I realize that I am not just American but also Asian. It can be hard to balance

both of those things because they are both very different. They are different but neither is bad

because that is what I am. I am not one or the other, I am both. Sometimes, I do get confused

because ​I find myself being an outcast of the Vietnamese community. I am too "American" for

them but too "Asian" for Americans. It is hard finding the middle ground because people think

you can only be one or the other.

I realized that every country has different dialects. Even if you can speak the same

language, there are some words that you say that would be different from others. ​My family is

from south vietnam. I think that it plays a big impact where you are from because the north and

south have different dialects. I had learned this when I was speaking to my cousins grandma and

I could not understand what she was saying. At first, I thought it was just because I just couldn’t

understand vietnamese but it was because she had a different dialect and had different words to

explain what she was saying. I didn’t realize that vietnamese people would also have trouble

understanding other vietenamese people because of where they are from.

It can be hard balancing the two cultures in my life but I am trying harder to bring more

of my vietnamese culture back. For example, whenever someone would speak to me in

vietnamese, I would try to speak to them back in vietnamese. It can be hard for me sometimes

because I don’t know that many words anymore and so I would have to go back and forth

between english and vietnamese. I get embarrassed talking to adults sometimes because some of

them would give a slight laugh whenever I was trying to speak vietnamese or just say its okay

just speak english. It’s frustrating whenever that happens because I feel like all the efforts that I
made to be more immersed in my vietnamese culture gets shot down. However, my family thinks

differently because they encourage me to speak more vietnamese and help me out whenever I

don’t know a word. I think that now that my family has been in America for so long now, they

understand that I am not only vietnamese but also american and will always be part of both

cultures.
Reflection

What you can learn by analyzing my language and literacy practices is that I was

different from other people and that I did learn the same things growing up because I grew up in

such a different environment than the people that went to my school and lived in my

neighborhood. I learned that it was okay to be different because everyone here was an immigrant

or their ancestors were immigrants at some point unless they’re native american. I think the most

successful part of my project was that it challenged me to think what I never realized before. I’m

proud of myself that I had a lot to write about this topic because usually when people ask me I

don’t really say much because I don’t think that people would want to hear it but I’m glad that

my story is out there. I wish that I had more time to finish this project because I feel like some of

my information was out of order and I did not know where to place it. If I had more time I would

try to fix that. I want readers to notice that I am not just Asian or not just American but both.

Some advice that I have based on my experience with this project was to take your time to think

because it's hard writing everyday and it burns you out. But if you take some days to think about

what you want to write about and write bullet points, it is easier to go from there. My time

management was a little off for this project because I thought I had more time to finish this but

the time went by pretty quick. I think that my paper would’ve been better if I had managed my

time better because all my information would be written in a better way.