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LITR
5831 World / Multicultural Literature: |
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The Ultimate Roadblock in Attaining the American Dream May be in
Learning the Language
The fact that immigrants acquiring the language plays such a pivotal role
in assimilation had never been something I regarded with much weight. In all
actuality, the whole topic of immigration has never been a topic that I put much
thought towards because, like a lot of Americans, I know that my family
immigrated to America from elsewhere, but it did not directly affect me in any
obvious way as to give me any sense of empathy for their situation. Notice I
used empathy not sympathy; I am certainly sympathetic for their struggles and
the barriers they face every day but the connection that would make it possible
for me to feel for them has been
lackluster at best. But what barrier is the toughest to overcome and why?
Learning the language is just the barrier I know see as the ultimate roadblock
for assimilating to American culture and way of living. My lack of empathy and
ignorance in this department is what finally brought me around to finding where
my main interest lies—I will even go so far as to admit that foreigners not
being able to speak English when they get here has caused me irritation and
created mental flags that labeled these people as less-than and incompetent.
That sort of bias is not in my nature and I wanted to research further to
educate myself in order to be more patient and understanding of the issues
facing every immigrant.
My own father and grandparents were immigrants to this country from
Germany in the 1970s and had to quickly and sloppily learn the language of
their new homeland, but unfortunately their skills never effectively came into
fruition—English is one of the hardest languages to learn, especially as adults.
However, after divorcing my father while I was very young, my mother chose to
keep me from learning German I guess to make it more difficult to communicate
with that whole side of the family and keep me in alliance with her. This later
created many problems when I was old enough to want to know my father and his
side of my family because I couldn’t communicate effectively with any of them in
order to get to know them or set up meetings. I was already annoyed with myself
for never learning the language but it secretly frustrated me too, that they had
never fully committed to learning English or assimilating to this country. They
found comfort in a community of their minority culture and found life mostly
easy within because they seldom had to converse with the outside world. The
community had professionals who spoke the language, so the issues often faced by
immigrants like finding work, housing, friends, and healthcare, were all pretty
much laid out at their feet.
To my misfortune, I was never able to get close and form the
relationships I would have liked to, but their American narrative was a very
fortunate and easy one when compared to others. In an article by Christina Nunez
about the biggest hurdles faced by immigrants to America, she put language at
the top of the list followed by things like securing work and housing and
accessing services like healthcare, which all lead back to having the handicap of
not knowing the language. Likewise, in another article by Paul M. Schyve in the
Journal of General Internal Medicine,
Schyve too sheds light on the issue of the language barrier for foreigners and
immigrants in attaining healthcare. He writes, “Effective communication with
patients is critical to the safety and quality of care. Barriers to this
communication include differences in language, cultural differences, and low
health literacy,” believing in the same hurdles that Nunez did and putting
language deficit at the forefront.
I found this to be a common theme among many articles, stories, and in
personal conversations with immigrants, and quickly my bias and former annoyance
began to crumble and were replaced with a more educated understanding and a
sense of empathy. Reading The Cooked Seed
at the beginning of the semester was my first taste of American comfort and
entitlement and a firsthand account of a Chinese immigrant’s, Anchee’s, struggle
to learn the language and everything which that affected, like Anchee finding a
job, succeeding in school, making friends and securing a household for herself
and her American roommate. She touched briefly on the topic that many Americans,
myself included, tend to have when people immigrate to America and cannot speak
English like we automatically expect them to-that she felt like her friends had
to take care of and teach a baby, for all she knew. Having read that and seeing
how intelligent she is made me feel like the ignorant one. Similarly, in “The
English Lesson,” there was a student in ESL course who had been a great
professor in his former country but upon coming to the United States had been
knocked down to taking a position as a janitor simply because he didn’t know the
language.
A personal account of some such struggle coming to America not formerly
knowing English came from a personal friend of mine named David. David came to
America about a year ago in order to go to school and work but he told me his
experience at first was like pulling teeth—he had no connections, couldn’t
speak English well and had a hard time securing work and therefore securing
a place to live. After becoming close with David this year, I can see how
intelligent he is and how much he has to offer, and it’s almost infuriating to
think that the only thing holding him back from such great things was his lack
of language. Things have since smoothed out for him, and his English is almost
impeccable, but the stories of his struggle will always stay with me and help me
to see that language doesn’t necessarily mean anything but it is everything.
If immigrants can muscle their way past the roadblock of language
acquisition, their true potential can be let loose and they can become huge
assets to this country. Immigrants obviously wanted to come to America to
accomplish something that they could not at home, so judging someone based on
their current language skillset, I now see, is preposterous. Furthermore, I know
that it would be extremely difficult for me to go to a different country and
immediately be able to speak the language or to learn a new language at all for
that matter. The threats that would be posed due to my lack of understanding
what others are saying and not being able to effectively communicate my needs
would be immense and terrifying. What they are doing is so brave and requires
much more patience from the dominant culture, including me.
Works
Cited
Brown, Wesley, and Amy Ling. Imagining America: Stories from the Promised
Land. New York: Persea, 1991. Print.
Min,
Anchee. The Cooked Seed: A Memoir. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Nunez, Christina. "The 7 Biggest Challenges Facing Refugees and Immigrants in
the US." Global Citizen. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 12 Dec. 2014.
Web. 18 June 2016.
<https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/the-7-biggest-challenges-facing-refugees-and-immig/>.
Schyve, Paul M. "Language Differences as a Barrier to Quality and Safety in Health Care: The Joint Commission Perspective." J GEN INTERN MED Journal of General Internal Medicine 22.S2 (2007): 360-61. Web.
