Integration, disappointment
May. 8th, 2006 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsThis weekend, while Omaha and I were at the grocery store, I passed by three women who clearly represented three generations of the same family. The eldest and the middle were chattering back and forth in one of those bouncy south-Asian accents such as Vietnamese or Cambodian. The conversation got heated, and the eldest walked off in a huff.
Then the youngest, an ordinary-looking teenager, turned and said, "Mom, what were you and Grandma talking about?"
This reminded me of Nick Gillespie's appearance on O'Reilly, where he pointed out that by the third generation almost no immigrant children speak the language of their grandparents' home country, and their attachment to it, whatever it may be, is given distance by that lack of common language.
On the other hand, I was also with the kids at a playground the other day, andit was time to head home. We were going over to a friend's house to have dinner, and they had fresh strawberries. "Come on, kids. It's time to go get strawberries."
This little boy, maybe five, was standing next to Yamaraashi-chan as I said it, and he said, "What are strawberries?"
Oy.
Then the youngest, an ordinary-looking teenager, turned and said, "Mom, what were you and Grandma talking about?"
This reminded me of Nick Gillespie's appearance on O'Reilly, where he pointed out that by the third generation almost no immigrant children speak the language of their grandparents' home country, and their attachment to it, whatever it may be, is given distance by that lack of common language.
On the other hand, I was also with the kids at a playground the other day, andit was time to head home. We were going over to a friend's house to have dinner, and they had fresh strawberries. "Come on, kids. It's time to go get strawberries."
This little boy, maybe five, was standing next to Yamaraashi-chan as I said it, and he said, "What are strawberries?"
Oy.
