I’m Vietnamese, but I cannot speak the language. Both of my grandparents are immigrants who came to Vietnam after the war. My dad was born in Vietnam and my mother was born in Louisiana. All of them speaks fluent Vietnamese, but only my mother speaks English. Growing up, it became harder and harder for me to communicate with my family in a sense that they did not know what I was saying and vice versa. Granted, I went to a Vietnamese school when I was younger but later dropped out once my family became busy with life.
For those who do not know, Vietnamese is one of the hardest languages to master. Due to the fact that it is purely phonetic and that every word in the language is one syllable. One word can mean multiple things. For example, muối,
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The streets of Ho Chi Minh City are beautiful around the summer time, but my favorite city was Huế, the city of cheap eats. My siblings and I have never been to Vietnam before, so it was an experience for all of us. As we were sitting down in a restaurant, looking at the menu, an old lady came up to us to take our order. My mother used to order for my brothers, so she ordered for them. When the lady looked at me, waiting for me to give her my order, all I could do was point at the picture on the menu and give her a smile. The look on her face was clear displeased. “She was born in America. She doesn’t know Vietnamese,” my father quickly told her, apologizing for my lack of knowledge. I felt embarrassed, lowering my head whenever she came near us. It was not my fault that I did not know my native language, but it was not my fault entirely for being able to learn it all these …show more content…
My Vietnamese is very limited, I do not know how to write or speak it. Whenever I talk to someone in my native tongue, they either receive my knowledge well or poorly. When it comes to speaking with my elders, they ridicule me for not knowing the language from where my ancestors were. It was not my fault in all honesty. I had the materials to learn the language right in front of me, but I never really took the time to go do it. Life just got in the way. Both of my parents were struggling to make ends meat. My father even had to go out of state once, just to find a job while my mother was still in
As a proud second generation Vietnamese American, I proudly associate myself with my Catholic Vietnamese community. Like all members in my group, we are indoctrinated with the typical immigrant values of perseverance, freedom, and respect for others and our cultural identity. The church that binds us together, Our Lady of Lavang, is the center where most of the Catholic Vietnamese Community gathers all over West Michigan. Since the 1st grade, I went through the Church's school program every Sunday to learn about Christian moral values, Vietnamese traditions, and language. These lessons has heavily influenced my outlook on life, enabling me to use faith to build confidence with myself, maintain integrity, and to love and respect every individual.
I am Canadian I am Canadian! I live in a house not an igloo. I drive a car not a dog sled or ski doo.
However, to understand and comprehend the teachings of the relatives and the Vietnamese religious community, the adolescent children must understand the Vietnamese language. The language and communication difficulties are a result of the acculturation gap, which affects the bonding process between family members (Ho, 2010, p. 2). According to Huyen, a Vietnamese mother interviewed in the study, she stated:
Growing up in a Vietnamese household can be hard. But earning the acceptance from your family members is even harder. Having high expectations, making intellectual conversations at the age of three or being able
For my parent’s, language was and still is a constant struggle doing things that seem easy to most people can be difficult for them. Things like ordering food at a fast food restaurant and asking for help at the grocery store seem may easy for most people but can sometimes be challenging for my parents. My brother and I try to help as much as we can by translating. I found it extremely helpful since it helped me stay connected to both languages. Now it is not as hard for my parents since they have picked up a lot of the language and there are different recourses.
In Vietnam, independence is far from desirable, much less respected. Family connections are so powerful that it is not unheard of for as many as three generations to live in the same household (often the direct result of grown children’s desire to do whatever necessary to care for their aging parents). Someone’s success or failure is never seen as theirs alone, but is directly credible to the family. If one wished to insult a
Ha’s mother is grieving the disappearance of her husband and the fall of Vietnam to Communism. The fallout of the Vietnam War causes separation for Ha and her family. Once in America, Ha finds that many in the small township move to ignore her culture and her heritage. Vietnamese culture and
When I was a toddler, my family visited Vietnam for the first time together. It was the also the first time my mom returned since she got married and immigrated to the United States. We arrived around the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival that summer. The humid streets swelled with clusters of vendors selling handmade paper lanterns, small candles, vibrant-colored toys, and a variety of cakes.
I am a girl with two heads. At home, I wear my Chinese head, in school I wear my English head. Being an Asian, or Chinese, as it is commonly referred to, my culture plays a key role in the development of who I am and what I do, my personal identity. An identity is the distinguishing character or personality of an individual. Parents are often one of the key factors of this culturally developed personal identity.
After 1975, she learned to speak, read, and write in Vietnamese. She is now comfortable with English but still uses Vietnamese. Her siblings learned Vietnamese first and then learned Mandarin or Hainanese. Now each child uses a different language with each other and their elders. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate that even families can be separated by language.
The ideas of food, culture and community are explore in chapters eight and nine, particularly through the ideas of family relationships and its strong links to traditional Vietnamese
I am 1/128th Cherokee I have my CDBI card and receive all my native benefits. I discovered that I also have French in my blood line. So I call myself a French Indian. I am not sure where my family came from I was unable to locate some of the family history, but I am not giving up on tracing my family tree. I know that I have Choctaw blood line as well, my mother and I are tracing that back as well. All of my Indian blood line comes from my mother’s side of the family. I am not sure what blood line my father has, I just haven’t had the desire to look that side of my family up and do the
When we are home, we have to speak vietnamese because my mom doesn't want us to forget our language,but sometimes my brothers don't understand vietnamese that much. We can speak English at home but without my mom. Speaking to my brothers is a good practice English for me because they're in high
The subject of my interview is a 68 year elderly Vietnamese man named Minh “Bi” Ngo. Mr. Ngo has white long hair, a medium long white beard and a distinctive mole on the bottom of his left eye and a thick Vietnamese accent. He was born and raised in Vietnam on April 3rd, 1947. He is also a widow who is currently living with his daughter in Westminster, Orange County. Originally, Mr. Ngo was from the city of Buon Ma Thuot in the province of Dak Lak, Vietnam. He then immigrated to Falls Church, Virginia where he began his new life in the United States. At the time of the interview, Mr. Ngo looked very exhausted yet grateful at the same time. I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Ngo through his daughter, who is a friend of my cousin. I conducted the interview on the afternoon of September 24th, which lasted for two hours. During the interview Mr. Ngo shared with me his experiences during the Vietnam war, his times in the Vietnamese Reeducation camps, his immigration to the United States, and his involvement in the Vietnamese community today. As the interview continues on, I began to comprehend a little bit more on the way it was back then and how the common folks
“Con trai , chúng tôi đang ở đây.” Those were the first few words my father spoke to wake me up upon landing in my parent’s holy majestic birthplace, Vietnam. Exhausted and excited, I replied back in a tiring voice to my father saying how excited it was to be back in this glorious country in my native tongue, “Cuối cùng , tôi không thể tin rằng chúng tôi đang ở đây.” Father alongside with mother gave a heartwarming smile towards me and I knew, this was going to be the greatest vacation trip ever.