Mahir Shahriar
English 110
Cover Letter
Writing this essay forced me to truly reflect on my experience with language. For a long time, I hated language. Simply put, I was bad at it. In English, I never knew the right words and struggled with my vocabulary. I would often search up synonyms for words for my writing assignment (I’m doing it right now for this assignment) as I felt that the simple words, I knew weren’t able to convey how I truly felt. With my mother tongue, Bangla, it’s even worse. I do not know how to read or write it. I only knew how to understand it for a long time, and to an extent, even to this day. I only learned how to speak very simple words and phrases, and I can’t hold a full conversation without stuttering or not knowing how to say the things I want to say. Well, I guess the same thing happens with English.
When writing this essay, I had to go back and think. ‘When was there a time when language deeply affected me?’ I knew that my narrative would have to be something about my struggle with Bangla; I always struggled to talk in it. So, I sat there, thinking about my experiences failing at Bangla, when I remembered the time when my problems with Bangla became clear to me. When my grandparents came to America. Yet, in thinking about all my experiences, I reflected on each of them. How I struggled through all of them, and what I learned from them. It truly made me proud of all the things I went through, and I learned from them. And when finishing the essay, I felt most content with what I had written. For the first time in a long time, I felt that I was able to properly explain how I felt in a piece of writing and that’s something I’m very proud of.
My intended audience in writing this essay was obviously Professor Lobell and the rest of the class, but it could be read by anyone who struggled with balancing their mother tongue and its culture with English and American culture. The story I told in my narrative is something similar to what many bilingual children go through. They have two languages on their hands, and can’t balance them, choosing to pick one and focus on that alone, as I did. My message to them is to try finding a balance between them, as it makes it easier to speak to their family and others from their culture; and they can coexist with the American culture they live in.
This narrative is an anecdote of a time in my life when I struggled with my language, Bangla. Whenever I read anecdotes, I feel connected to the writers and it brings a lot of emotion out of me, which I aimed to replicate by writing an anecdote. I wanted to use pathos in an anecdote to resonate with the reader to show that the struggle that bilingual kids go through isn’t unique to them and we all go through it.
In the class, we read multiple texts and watched Safwat Saleem’s TedTalk; all of which talk about issues that people had with language, whether it be “broken” English used by immigrants, accents, or “Black” English. They all try to bring to light how language isn’t binary, how even in one language, there are multiple ways of using that language and every one of those ways is valid; and how their relationship with language shaped who they are. The experience I wrote about, shaped how I looked at language and communication as I felt the struggle of not being able to convey how I truly felt, similar to how many who speak with an accent or “broken” or “black” English.
Mahir Shahriar
English 110
Language and Literacy Narrative
Summer is always a fun time for a young student. They don’t have school. Any homework? Any responsibilities. They can just spend the entire summer relaxing by themselves, playing games with friends, sleeping, spending time with family, but most importantly, not having to worry about homework being due. But for 6-year-old Mahir, summer was just a little bit different. His grandparents were coming home from their home in Bangladesh for the first time in his life, and he could not wait.
The 6-year-old me was ecstatic. The last time I saw my grandparents was when I was 2, when my family visited Bangladesh. I didn’t even remember that time; I only knew that it had happened from old photos and the dates on them. I was told the news of them coming to live with us in May of that school year. It was only first grade, but I already dreaded going to school and was desperately waiting for summer to begin. The news only made me happier for the summer to begin. The night I was told, I ran around our apartment with joy, chanting “I’m going to see Dada and Dadu.” (Grandpa and Grandma) My mom chuckled at my excitement and told me that when they arrived, I had to talk in Bangla because they did not understand English. “All good”, I thought. I hear my parents talk in Bangla all the time. They even speak to me in Bangla. There won’t be a problem that my grandparents didn’t speak English because I understood Bangla too. However, in my little 6-year-old head, I did not piece together that understanding Bangla, just was not the same as speaking it.
At the airport, three days after school had ended, I waited with my family. Some members of my extended family were there too, waiting for my grandparents. My maternal grandparents were there, ready to see my paternal grandparents for the first time in a long time. My mom’s younger sister and two older brothers and their families were also there, ready to help bring all the luggage home in their cars. I waited, so excited that I couldn’t keep still. I ran around, constantly saying to myself, “Dada and Dadu are coming!”, “Dada and Dadu are coming!”. My parents and maternal grandparents had to tell me multiple times that we were in a public space, to be quiet and calm down. Still, I was ecstatic and awaited the plane’s arrival.
At 3:55 p.m. EST, the plane landed. As it was in the early 2010s, airport security gave my Muslim paternal grandparents a hard time as they tried to get through immigration and retrieve their luggage, extending the time I had to wait before seeing them. An hour and a half later, my grandparents finally made their way out. The state of euphoria I was in could not be described. I ran to them, going under the line divider rope that stopped people from going to the exit of immigration, hugging them until my arms went sore. “Mahir, balo aso?” my grandma asked me. I knew what that meant. ‘Are you good?’ for a direct word-for-word translation but it was just how you said, ‘How are you?’ in Bangla. “I’m good. I’m so happy you’re here.” I replied. But my grandma just looked at me, chuckling after ten or so seconds. “English busi na”, she told me. (I don’t understand English.) It was then I realized I had no way of talking to my grandparents. My mom reiterated that I had to speak Bangla. After that, 6-year-old me lost it. I was on the floor, bawling my eyes out, screaming, “I CAN’T SPEAK BANGLA. YOU DIDN’T TEACH ME.”
Back at home, my mom explained to my grandparents that I couldn’t speak Bangla, but I could understand it. My parents would come in as my translator, translating everything I had to say to my grandparents from English to Bangla. While on paper this seemed fine, I hated it. I felt like I couldn’t properly connect to my grandparents. My grandparents would often just chuckle when I’d try talking to them, all while I knew they couldn’t understand me. They had flown all the way here from Bangladesh, and I had waited so long, just for our exchanges to be very awkward. I knew my grandparents enjoyed my company, but I was also aware that they felt disheartened by the fact that I couldn’t speak to them. I made it my goal that summer, to be able to speak Bangla with my grandparents. My parents had prioritized so heavily that I learned English to be able to communicate with people at school when I was younger. I’d often be sitting at the dining room table at breakfast, just reading the long, confusing words on the nutrition facts of the cereal box because my parents said it would help me read. This summer, I wouldn’t be doing that. Whenever my grandparents or parents talked in Bangla, I would try my best to listen carefully and repeat what they said. August rolled around, and by then I started mustering up the courage to speak in Bangla to my parents and grandparents. However, it did not go great. I could only say very simple phrases and everything I said was very broken, but I was able to get my point across. It motivated me so much, and by the end of the summer, I was able to answer my grandma’s first question from when she first landed, “Mahir, balo aso?” “Ami balo asi.” (‘I am good’- word-for-word translation.)
The problem I faced is actually a pretty common problem with children in immigrant households. Oftentimes, when bilingual children grow up, they tend to ‘pick’ one language; either their mother tongue or the language of the country they live in, in this case, English. However, in doing so, they lose connection with the other and its culture. Most commonly, they end up choosing English, causing them, like in my case, to barely know how to speak their language, and not even know how to read or write it, or just barely be able to do so. This language barrier also causes a rift in their connection to their family and culture. Oftentimes, families of the child feel neglected or disrespected when the child doesn’t speak to them in their native language and reflect the practices of their culture. It is where the term ‘whitewashed’ comes from. Children often adopt the cultures of “white” America and not their native cultures. In uncommon scenarios, the children pick their own native language and culture over English, causing them to be “behind” in their English and knowledge of American culture. This leads to a rift between them and the people they meet in school, at work; anywhere outside of their culture. They are often subject to discrimination and bullying at those places, due to the way they speak and their lack of knowledge about American culture. I hope that in writing this, bilingual kids who faced a similar issue to mine can understand the importance of building a balance between their native language and culture, and American culture and English.
