What did it take?

What did it take to learn your mother tongue?


"It took a lot."


Simple as it may sound, learning my mother language and holding onto it in a country where they didn't speak my mother tongue was hard.

Let me break it down for you...


I'm a second generation Korean American that was born in the United States.



If you don't know what a second generation is exactly,


Second generation Americans are...

• the second generation of a family to be born in a particular country

OR

• the native-born child of naturalized parents.

As you may know from my previous blog posts, I was born NOT speaking English because my parents spoke Korean around me. I did not learn English until I began elementary school where I was in ESL until third grade. During that time, I had a hard time trying to learn English and all the other school subjects. My parents were working long hours and the family time that used to be filled with sounds of the Korean language decreased. And then also as you now, one day I just lost it. I lost my mother tongue and the identity that didn't seem important to me at the time.


I thought "hey, I don't need to know Korean cause I mean when will I need to use it? Okay, I guess when I am with my grandparents and other Koreans but even then I can still speak English..I mean at least I didn't lose it completely." For some time I held onto that belief but then it was that incident I mentioned earlier and other little things that changed my mind.


Many people don't realize this because people can't relate to a "mother language" because they are not from another country or ethnicity.



Oftentimes, the second generation don't know there own language mainly because of the following three reasons:
1. they were born in an English speaking environment
2. forget their mother language by the time they started school
OR
3. they were adopted



When I meet people who don't know their own mother language or they don't have the desire to know their mother language I truly feel sorry for them. At one point, I was like them, not having a care in the world and just trying to live life. Now for some people, its understandable but if they were adopted but for the people who chose to not learn it I have a few questions for you,


"what does it mean being a __ethnicity__ American or a __ethnicity__?"


"How will you talk to your own race?"


"Do you truly know who you are? Where you came from?"


Some people say "ignorance is bliss." But is it really?