Do you even know how smart I am in another language?

"Do you even know how smart I am in Spanish?" 

Gloria is my favorite character in Modern Family, not just because she's funny but because she embodies what many of us, whose first language is not English, feel. I grew up speaking Cantonese and Mandarin with my immigrant parents and never felt embarrassed until I was told at school that my "English was weird."

Just like how Campoverdi, in her memoir, would duck down to "tie her shoelaces" when passing by her school to prevent others from seeing her in her abuelito's old car, I would have my popo (grandma in Chinese) drop me off at the school's back entrance to prevent others from talking to her. I was ashamed that my grandma couldn't speak English to communicate with my teachers and that my parents were always busy working seven days a week. On the other hand, other people's parents were in attendance, helping out at every school function.

Seeing how my family members who couldn't speak fluent English were less respected and struggled to get opportunities, I bought into the idea that achieving the "American Dream" required complete assimilation into American culture, that meant English fluency. From then on, I spoke English whenever possible, even though it isolated me from the rest of my family.

The better my English got, the worse my Cantonese and Mandarin got. The way words are pronounced and the tonal changes in Chinese are drastically different than in English. This drastic difference is true of the written languages too. So, by becoming more fluent in English, I became more and more detached from the Chinese language, my culture, my family, and my identity. For many first and onlys, this is a common struggle because it appears to us that the fastest way to progress in our society is to "play the game right". The end-goal is to be amongst the people who are successful socially and career-wise, so you imitate their way of being to make it easier to get there.

It wasn't until I got to college, an environment much more diverse than the community in which I was raised, that I realized the error in my thinking. Meeting people from different states, countries, and socioeconomic backgrounds helped me learn the value of what makes me different than others. Being multilingual is a blessing in many ways. 

Living in the dorms with two roommates and a packed floor during my first year of college, I had little privacy. However, I could speak privately to my family in Chinese without having to leave the room. In job interviews, I can leverage my ability to connect with certain communities in our primary language. At restaurants, I can connect to servers and show them my appreciation for their food. 

Through these experiences, I got in touch with my identity as a Chinese-American again. However, something that still stumps me to this day is how certain languages and accents are more respected and valued. Despite a couple of my high school friends struggling with speaking broken English, they didn't face these same struggles. 

A recent conversation with a law school friend made me more curious about this accent and language preference phenomenon. We talked about how certain languages and accents have more positive connotations, like sounding more educated. For example, we have noticed that when someone speaks with a British accent, they are often perceived to be smarter or more attractive. When our friends spoke French, Italian, or other romance languages, their bilingualism was considered very admirable. 

Yet, I've been told in college to steer clear of certain professors with Indian accents, not because it's hard to understand the concepts they're teaching but because it's hard to understand what they're saying in general. This seems to be a common trend, not just in the United States. The stark differences in our experiences with those who speak in highly regarded accents or languages in American society are fascinating. I often hear about and see privilege in the context of being white, conventionally attractive, and wealthy, but I think this accent and language preference phenomenon is also notable.

I'm sure there are many underlying explanations, but what stands out most to me is that people like accents, languages, and people who are more similar to them, but just different enough. Certain accents and languages are associated with disadvantaged and low-prestige minority groups and are less "standard", and therefore viewed less positively. This makes them vulnerable to negative bias. For many first and onlys, this poses an additional challenge, along with all the other ones, to navigate.

Yet, we must not be discouraged because we need to remember that, despite our unique and different identities being a source of struggles, they're also what make us strong and resilient. They are what motivates our hard work. So even if others don't know how "smart we are in Spanish," it doesn't matter because we, ourselves, know our capabilities. 

Code-switching

Code switching has been a part of my for as long as I can remember. 

For Context

To paint a clearer picture, from Kindergarten to 12th grade I attended predominantly White, upper to upper-middle class, conservative, Christian schools where there were very few people who looked like me. From Kindergarten-8th grade, there were fewer than five Black students out of approximately 150 students. 

My family does not practice any sort of organized religion and is overall rather liberal. While my parents achieved class mobility, they both came from lower middle class military families and many of the cousins/relatives that I have the most contact with also came from similar class backgrounds. I should also note that I myself am mixed-race. My father is Black while my mother is Creole and Spanish. 

Additionally, outside of school, the demographics that I socialized with were almost the complete opposite of those with whom I went to school. Outside of school my friends, teammates, and cousins were mostly Black. If they were not Black, they were typically some other type of POC. 

Caught in Between

Growing up, it often felt like I was living two completely different lives. Everything always felt complicated.

In order to be able to function in both spaces, I had to learn how to compartmentalize. I quickly learned the concept of “knowing your audience,” and that there is a time and place for everything. There were certain jokes or cultural references that I could not make at school, because my classmates would not know what I was talking about. On the flip side, there were certain musical artists or TV shows that I knew I could not watch or listen to with my friends and family outside of school because they would not like it. 

Jokes, cultural references, and pop culture were not the only areas where I would code switch. One of the most significant areas that would change is in the way I speak. While in my school environments, I would not use certain slang or dialects when talking to my classmates or teachers. Additionally, I recognized that I had to police my tone very differently while at school.  

At school I had to ensure that I smiled or softened my expressions in order to avoid coming off as “angry.” I had to learn how to manage my anger or frustration in certain situations because I knew that I would get painted as “aggressive” even if I was not the one who started a conflict. I had to learn to socialize and engage with others, because being too shy or quiet would lead me to be painted as standoffish. Overall, I had to be very precise in how I presented myself because I was given less grace than many of my peers.

My language and interactions would completely change outside of school. I felt less pressure to conform to the people and culture around me. I would speak freely without carefully calculating how I put my words together in order to ensure that I did not come off a certain way. I could express my frustrations and emotions more, without concern over how I would be labeled.  

Getting Used to It

While it certainly started off as a chore, code-switching has just become a natural part of my life.

Being in these two spaces shaped my interests in very interesting ways. There are very sharp cultural contrasts in the types of media I consume. Whether it be musical discographies, television shows, iconic movies, or other forms of art, I find myself drawn to content that people traditionally associate with both Black audiences and White audiences. However, it is no longer because I am trying to assimilate to the environments around me, but rather because I have grown to genuinely enjoy the content.  

While I have become very comfortable and confident within my elastic identity, there are still some complex questions that code-switching raises. For example, I cannot say whether or not I feel code-switching is an inherently negative thing. I do code switch when I talk about some of my niche interests with certain friends that I went to the private Catholic schools with. However, I am not acting differently out of fear of them judging me. Instead, it is because I do not generally have any other spaces to express those interests, as they tend to differ from those of my Black or predominantly POC friend groups. 

Sometimes I am simply expressing different interests in different spaces, which causes me to present myself differently.

The Real Me

There is one question that has always sort of stuck with me: If I code switch so much, is there anyone who truly knows the “real” me? 

Honestly, I do not know. What I can say is that all of my friends see different pieces of the real me. While my varying friend groups may not see the exact same version of me, I know that they would love and accept whichever one shows up that day without any form of judgment. And ultimately I think that is all that matters.