English: Reflection May 13, 2008

Tangoing with English
Readers around me were the most influential in my study of language and literature, nurture prevailing over nature. I grew up speaking Cantonese. It was the language my grandparents spoke, my main caretakers. In finding a school my parents found comfort in (the teachers spoke the same language my parents spoke), I transitioned into preschool with ease because it was a predominantly Chinese class. We all came from Chinese-speaking homes, budding ABCs (American Born Chinese).
There didn’t seem to be problems when I learned English (I attended an all English-speaking school). Honestly, I don’t remember ever being aware I had this split-tongue ability. However, I do remember being one of fifteen “Rainbow Readers” in the second grade. Instead of staying in our classroom, we were brought to the library for English and Reading. It wasn’t until my senior year, a few months ago, when I realized that “Rainbow Readers” were students who needed extra help on English/Reading. “They put him in Rainbow Readers. He’s a little bit slower”, a parent whispered to my mom after my mom asked about her youngest son.
While this was happening in my English education, my Chinese flourished. It was third grade when I was openly acknowledged for my achievements. Mrs. Blue (her Chinese is a homophone to the Chinese word for “blue”), my favorite teacher, assigned us conjunctions to learn about sentence structures. “Use the following words to create sentences. “But”, “because, “and” and “yet” were written in a row with space left beneath for our own literary creations. For “but”, I wrote, “Little Ming had two eggs but he could not finish them so put one in a bowl.” She showed it to the class as exemplary work; I was so proud.
Unfortunately, my Chinese soon dissolved into American culture. I guess it’s a matter of opportunity cost. Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel helped me unlearn my mother tongue; gradually changing the language I speak to my parents to “Chinglish” (the resulting dialect of mixing Chinese and English).
This didn’t mark the upward soar of my English skills. That began in high school. Something triggered a willingness inside of me to speak well. I wanted my grammar to represent the successful person I wanted to be. I had a new desire to be intellectually mature. Reading engaging books in my freshmen year brought me closer to that goal. If I brought my book somewhere with me, my mini-electronic dictionary would come along. All the books I read in that summer were suggestions from teachers and friends, people I usually took advice from anyway. Readers around me influenced me more than ever.
Literacy gauges intellectual ability. My parents unconsciously embedded this belief in me. Education was always my given priority. It was their reason behind making those life-changing decisions, from escaping Vietnam to working for lower than minimum wage. Successful members of society were educated and I was put on that path from the very beginning. This belief was translated to me at the same time I wanted to be intellectually mature. For lack of better example, I wanted to be novel reading, provocative-question-asking Oprah. Watching her show was inspiring. She refused to let her past stereotypically determine her present and future. Along with Oprah, I expanded my literacy to fill a void in my insecurities. Having a semi-Neanderthal mindset, I want to eventually find a “mate”. My media-inspired insecurities were stuck on physical appearances, my surface. I’ve come to the realization that I will never have Giselle’s body, Jessica’s nose or Paris’ money. So for back up, I would have smarts and intellect to “offer”.
My intellect has progressed to an all time high. My Native Son essay is a fitting example. After reading Native Son by Richard Wright, I was most inspired by his diction and syntax. He discreetly wove an exclusive few ideas into Bigger’s (the protagonist) experiences and I used my essay as an opportunity to study that. It was difficult on many levels; I had never used the Formalist lens to analyze literature before. It was a lens that forced me to step out of my comfort zone, leaving my own creativity behind and focusing on the authors. Along with being unfamiliar, this lens required detailed reading and a certain level of dexterity in the English language. I had to think of all the literal and figurative meanings of certain words/phrases, look back into the text and rekindle memories of discussions we had in class. After using other pieces by Wright and a radio commentary, my essay ended up being my interpretation of the story, what I thought certain components represented.
When attend NYU in the fall, the Morse Academic Program’s “Expository Writing Program” will be the class for which I write and “Foundations of Contemporary Culture” will be the class for which I read. Though my experiences (before high school) with school-assigned reading, I have a feeling college reading would be different. I would have been through different experiences, in a different mind set and see literature in a new light.