What Students Are Saying About Anti-L.G.B.T.Q. Legislation, Multilingualism and Nature’s Wonders

Growing up in a multilingual family definitely affected me and my environment that other kids who aren’t multilingual don’t experience. English isn’t actually my first language. I learned to speak Gujarati since the day I was born, and I constantly was submerged into the language as I grew up…

I love being bilingual. I love being able to talk in a different language with my family when I don’t feel comfortable talking in English. It’s a sense of security that I don’t feel like other non-multilingual people will understand. Not only that, I’m able to communicate so much more freely with my older relatives who don’t speak or understand English. Language is the bridge that connects me, a first generation child in America, to my family and it is constantly helping me learn more and more about them and vice versa everyday.

— Rahi, Block 2 Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Greater Expressive Possibilities

There are often times when the right word doesn’t come to mind in one language but it does for the other. For example, if I am extremely embarrassed, to the point where it is impossible to describe just how strongly I feel in English, the only words I can think of are “Jjok palyuh”, which in Korean translates to “My face is sold” …

After being in the American school system for nearly 11 years, English has become like second nature to me, and the real testament to this is the fact that my thoughts are in English. Although I speak Korean with my parents, I see the world through the lens of an English speaker. Like the family in the article, my family sometimes speaks in one language but uses a word or two from another language in the same sentence because it’s easier. And THAT is what makes being bilingual so amazing. Oral language is art; it flows off the tongue and moves like music. Our mind is the paintbrush, speaking through the canvas, and through another language emerges a completely new color palette.

— Teak, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

The Challenges of Knowing Multiple Languages

There are many disadvantages and challenges to being multilingual. Whenever I am around my mother and we are having a conversation in Spanish a lot of people give us weird looks, or they talk about us and say rude remarks. Some of the challenges include that sometimes I forget to switch back to English or a lot of people try to get me to teach them how to speak spanish. Many strangers when they find out that I am multilingual, question me about where I am from, or how much I know about my heritage. They also ask me why I’m white if my mom is from Cuba, and sometimes it gets very overwhelming to deal with everyone questioning me about it.

— Kilee, Hanover-Horton High School

My parents are from Bangladesh, so Bengali was the first language I learned. Yes, it’s nice to be bilingual knowing how to speak two different languages, especially my native one but learning English as my second language made me face some hardships throughout my early childhood. When I went to preschool I would always mix up my words with Bengali and it gave me a hard time learning English and speaking with other kids and my teacher. They eventually put me in ESL from Kindergarten till 3rd grade even though I didn’t really know what it meant to be in that class that young. Looking back I wish I had learned English first, which would’ve helped me overcome the barriers of my struggles in English and in grammar, and then slowly learn Bengali as I get older.

— Emily, Hoggard High School In Wilmington NC

Embracing Multilingualism in Schools

I think it’s extremely important to know another language, and students should start learning them earlier. It’s incomprehensible that students aren’t even offered a foreign language class or even an extracurricular option in elementary school. When presenting kids with seriously learning a language at the age of 12, are they really going to become fluent? Maybe yes, maybe no, but at the end of the day it’s much harder to become fluent in a language if you’re learning it with an almost fully developed brain revolving around different concerns and objectives. I love learning Italian and plan to become fluent, but I wish I started learning it in 1st or 2nd grade so that by now I would be mostly immersed in the language. Learning a language in school can be extremely useful in terms of life skills, but with the way the education system goes about it, not many students will take their world language class seriously.

— Christina, W.T. Clarke Highschool, Westbury