Despite growing up in the United States my first and primary language up until I was in sixth grade was Vietnamese. I certainly learned English in school and can speak it with a Midwestern, Californian, or East Oakland accent (aka Ebonics). The language of after school, home, family, and even entertainment was Vietnamese. My parents were determined that I remember that I was Vietnamese and NOT American. The only music we really listened to at home was Vietnamese music and what was on television was usually either some video game or various Hong Kong kung fu serials dubbed in Viet. I have no idea what was on regular TV in the 1980s (outside of your usual after school cartoons) or who the popular actors and actresses were but I certainly knew who Andy Lau was or Felix Wong. (They were Duong Qua and Quoc Tinh. Duh!) Speaking English was forbidden in our house with my second youngest uncle enforcing via a smack upside the head. In her free time, my mom taught my youngest sister and I how to read and write Viet Ngu, which was relatively easy since we already knew how to speak the language.
Ironically, when I began attending a more formal Vietnamese school was when I started to drift away from using Vietnamese as my primary language. I was in sixth grade and starting to care a bit more about doing and watching what the other kids my age were doing. I openly defied that no English rule at home and started to listen to (god, don’t blame me it was what was on the radio at the time!) MC Hammer, Stevie B, and Janet Jackson.
Perhaps what was happening with me was happening in other Viet families in our area because in sixth grade, the small Vietnamese community in the town we lived in decided to start a school to teach their children a thing or two about Vietnamese culture and particularly language. While my sister and I tested into third grade level lesson books, I remember being very unexcited about the reading material we were given. Full of moralistic tales on how to respect elders with very few of the fatalistic folk tales that I sort of knew and liked.
In a word, it was boring. I HATED the year of Saturdays spent in that school. I hated the reciting and the lines that we had to write over and over again. The adults teaching, not being regular teachers but refugees who had very little Vietnamese education themselves due to the disruption of that little war back in the old country were more interested in recreating the schools that they attended in their childhood than in making classes interesting in any way. They made us wear uniforms (on a Saturday!) and memorize and recite things while standing next to our desks. I remember thinking, why couldn’t it be like regular school? Where I could sit in my assigned seat and not say anything unless I raised my hand? I hated being called on in Vietnamese school. I never had a choice.
We moved to Oakland in the middle of 7th grade. By eight grade we were involved in one of the local Vietnamese Buddhist temples. Instead of sacrificing my Saturdays and my morning cartoons; I had to offer my Sundays up for cultural and linguistic education. Our temple had a Sunday school of sorts where we learned about Buddha, Buddhism, and more Vietnamese. We even learned how to sing the old South Vietnamese national anthem. (Vietnam moun doi! Vietnam forever!)
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Fast forward to today. I haven’t been to a Vietnamese school in over 10 years. I’m practically a stranger at my temple. I speak English approximately eighty percent of the time and it shows…in my kids.
Sweet Pea speaks Vietnamese to my grandma and mom with a Quang Nam (central Vietnam) accent and at this point probably knows an equal amount of English and Viet.
Evie used to be like Sweet Pea. My grandma had originally come over to take care of Evie and some of her first words were Viet. When I started telecommuting from home more and kept her at our house with me, she started to forget most of what she knew. She still remembers some songs. She now speaks almost no Vietnamese, she understands simple commands instructions and can count to 20. What she can say in Vietnamese is tinged with an American accent. The fact that she understands and can say as many Spanish words as Vietnamese is pretty telling. (Thank you Dora, Maya and Miguel, Handy Manny, Sesame Street, etc. etc. etc.)
In an effort to help Evie retain what she already knows and to help her learn more Vietnamese, I started to look for a Vietnamese language school in our area sometime last year. (It turns out we have a wealth of schools and community resources in the San Francisco Bay area.) The school we picked is less than three miles from home and started its school year, today. The teachers much more educated than the ones I had. Evie's teacher is a high school teacher during the rest of the week. She's young, pretty, and seems nice.
Still, I don’t think I was prepared for how nervous and worried I was about the first day of Vietnamese school. I had been reading about the hard time that a lot of mixed heritage children have had at a language school their parents signed them up for and I worried that Evie might feel out of place as one of the few half Vietnamese children at the school. I worried increasingly about her lack of comprehension of the language and wondered how she’d take it when she found out she had to speak and understand something she barely used. Although I hated Vietnamese school as a kid, at least I understood and spoke the language.
My worry reached its peak yesterday as I messaged J that perhaps we ought to wait a year. J replied that the longer we wait, the harder it will be for her. If we want her to learn and speak Vietnamese, now is the time to start.
He was right of course. Despite how bored I was in Vietnamese school, I do credit my experience for helping me retain what I know. I did learn how to read and write even more than what my mom taught me and I know more about my heritage and culture if than if I had not attended. I know so many people who regret not learning or regret that their parents didn’t push them to learn. J for example, (well, he doesn’t really regret) could have learned more Japanese from his grandma but didn’t want to hear or speak Japanese when he was a kid. He tried to learn it as a teenager, but it’s not the same. He’s not conversational.
My goal, is for Evie to at least be able to have a conversation with her grandparents in their native language and to learn a little of the history. So this morning, we got up early while J and Sweet Pea slept and went with my mom to the first day of Vietnamese school.
Evie said this morning, that she was scared. She looked a few times like she would cry. She buried her head in my side and barely looked when her new teacher asked her how old she was. She’d shyly raised her hand with her finger splayed. “Five,” she said softly.
“’Five’ tieng Viet noi sao?” her teacher asked. When Evie buried her head back into my side and didn’t answer, she repeated, “How do you say ‘five’ in Vietnamese?”
My mom began to explain that Evie knew very little Vietnamese, but she could learn when Evie interrupted her by looking at the teacher and saying, “Nam.”
Thankfully, Evie is in a small class of about seven students who have about the same level of knowledge that she has and who are of roughly the same age. There’s even one who is hapa with the same color hair as Evie’s and who seemed equally shy. I smiled at him as he said his Vietnamese name. Nghia (meaning).
I stood outside the classroom for the first fifteen minutes and watched as the class attempted to introduce itself. Some students were able to speak clearly in Vietnamese their names and age while others had to be coached. Evie had trouble saying, “Minh ten la Evie. Minh la nam tuoi.” (My name is Evie. I am 5 years old.) The teacher had to repeat the words for her a few times before she was able to say it. Her voice was slightly above a whisper, but she wasn’t the only one who almost whispered and she wasn’t the only one who pronounced some of the words wrong. She wasn’t alone.
