WLLN Essay

Cultural Shock 

My parents are from Bangladesh. They moved to the United States long before me or any of my siblings were born. My siblings and I were all born in the United States and didn’t know much at all about where my parents were from. As a result, growing up I would almost exclusively speak in English. Both my parents’ primary language was not English and only learned English after they got to the United States. They wouldn’t speak to me in Bangla normally so I never really picked up not too well. I hadn’t realized this fact yet though, because anytime I would speak in Bangla it would be to my parents and I never got any negative feedback from them and always just assumed that I was speaking properly. 

Imagine my shock when I realized I spoke like a child just learning his first words. When I was about 10 years old, my parents brought the idea of going to Bangladesh to visit some family. All of us were eager and excited, never having been there before. I’m not sure why, but I would always hold Bangladesh to high regards back then, even though I knew nothing about it. When we got there we went to my uncle’s house. So many relatives were there to greet us and meet us for the first time. Everyone was talking and chatting, all in Bangla, except I had no clue what they were saying. I could tell it was Bangla but that’s about it. I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t understand them. I thought I knew Bangla, never doubted it. The fact that I couldn’t figure that out, couples with all that was going on at the same time was overwhelming. My younger brother and I just hid behind my mother’s arms. 

For the first few days I didn’t even attempt to speak to anyone. My parents and siblings were an exception to that, I talked to them in English. There was this one time my mother left me and my brother with my grandmother. My grandmother’s the sweetest lady in the world, but back then I didn’t know who she was or what she was saying. The whole time she tried talking to us while we just stared. My brother would occasionally whisper in my ear, asking me what she said. I would reply with an “I don’t know” or a shrug and tell him it will be fine, mom’s coming. 

She tried speaking slower and I could tell she was sounding out the words so I was able to catch a few words and phrases. 

Overtime I got more used to understanding what they were saying and realized that it is not just that I didn’t know the words; my grammar was also all over the place, which is why it was hard to understand. The past tense, present tense, future tense, actual placement of the words was all mixed up. I caught on to the way they used grammar pretty quickly, so was able to understand people, for the most part, but I wasn’t able to apply it myself. I got to know my cousins better because they knew English enough to communicate with a lot of times they would say something in Bangla or ask me something and I would reply in English. This was the case with everyone if I was forced to communicate. If not, I would just avoid it entirely. This lasted for years. Most people caught on that I understand it but can’t speak it, but would ask how that happened. I couldn’t give them an answer because I didn’t know myself. 

After being actually being taught Bangla, from the beginning with reading and writing and all that, I was a bit more confident and did know how to construct sentences better and better overtime. But anytime I would go to speak it, I would get laughed at and made fun of. The reason for this is, even though could talk a lot better than before, I still had an accent and apparently it is really bad, or so I’ve been told. To me I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, I’m saying whatever they’re saying how they’re saying it but to them it sounds very different to a point where it’s not ignorable. 

In Bangladesh there are wheeled bike things called rickshaws, they are used as taxis in a way. They are a lot more popular than cars. I would normally have to go to school or anywhere else with one of those. The drivers would normally not know a drop of English, so to go anywhere you would have to tell them in Bangla. The first few times I had to do it I struggled so much to make him understand what I was saying a friend ended up helping me and spoke to him for me. It’s always been difficult for me to travel by rickshaw, I would hate having to talk to them so much that I would walk home most of the time. Anytime I would find a rickshaw whose driver knew some English I would be so happy and impressed, even if it were broken. Whereas I would be made fun of and ridiculed by everyone, despite them having intentions to hurt me or not. I grew to hate Bangla, speaking it, writing and reading it. 

In Bangladesh people are openly racist, they don’t recognize it as a bad thing. It’s just something everyone does, I’d say it’s a part of their culture. Most people here in America think racism here is bad, but at least here it is recognized as wrong. It’s much worse in Bangladesh because they don’t realize that and it’s so bad, that there’s no way to explain it to them. Because of this, I would always face racism mostly because of how I talk but would have to just take it with a smile because they don’t understand why I would be upset or offended by the things they say. In school, on the street, in my own home. Which is why I to this day avoid conversations in Bangla even though I do speak it considerably better than when I started.