Language can unify or divide us

Yes, I do agree that language can unify or divide us. For examples: English is the one of many commonly used languages in the world that allows people work together in any international areas. If Obama comes to my country or other Asia countries, he and the governors will use his English to work together or even they need translators but they are basic on English. However, English can divide us also because there is discrimination about language and the culture that the language belongs to it. In my country, if someone can speak influence English, they have admiration from people around them but they also get the ridicules from conservative people who just know only their native language. Today, many young generations were born and grown up in American, and most of them lost their mother language and had a strong English. Their grandparents or parents, who were lack of English, had a difficult time to teach them about their tradition culture or the native language. In this case, there are the speaking different languages and opinions cause the big distances in the family relationship. Therefore, language can unify or divide us.

My Immigration Experience

Hi everyone, my name is Anh. I am 29 years old, and I'm from Vietnam. I speak Vietnamese. I got married when I was 24 years old. Two years later after I graduated my college in my country, I followed my husband to the United States because we think America is the best country (about environment, education, opportunities of successful life) for our kids.

My husband and his family have been living the United States almost 20 years, in Minnesota because they had a political escape after Vietnam War. My husband told me many things mix up in their life by happiness and sadness since they came here. The most difficult time in their life was facing with an outlandish language and culture at beginning. My parents-in-law were hard to find a job, and their kids came to high school without English and got an ethnic discrimination from their friends. They had many paperwork problems to get their green card, citizen, insurance, and bank, etc. Contact to people was a challenge with them every day, for example, they had to use body language to buy the chicken wings, and that was the one of many memories in the hard time with full of fun and sadness.

Similarly, the first time I came here, I got many problems with my language, my career, the new food, the cold weather, etc. Even though I have some English background, learning English is a challenge of my new life in the US. I was so nervous to talk to people, and it was difficult to work with a lack of English, so I stayed at home and being a housewife. Moreover, I did not know how to drive a car. Therefore, all of my contact depended on my husband as a driver and a translator. Most of the food here are freeze foods, process foods. It takes time to adjust to the foods here, and I lost almost 15lbs in the first year. In addition, I came here at December, the subzero temperature and snow made me sick at the first days. I did not prepare enough the warm clothes, and I did not know the place to buy my clothes size. The option I had to choose was kid’s shops.

Of course, I have to deal with these problems by myself. I have learned many things from here. Now, my English is better, I know how to drive a car and stand in the middle Calhoun Lake with a buoyant feeling. More than that, I know some fresh food markets like the summer farm markets. Shopping is not my favorite, but I know some places to buy the stuff that I need or order online. I enjoy the BBQ food beside the lake, as I actually adjusted to the United States culture. However, I still prefer to keep my tradition culture, our customs and costumes, and the most important is preserving Vietnamese language for my kids.