It was a hot day in
July when we landed at Ben Gurion Airport. The sun
was so bright I could not see without squinting and
shading my eyes with one hand while clutching my teddy
bear “Brownie” with the other. An Israeli
friend of ours picked us up and I did not like the
looks of his old pickup truck nor his constant smiles
as though this were a joyous occasion. I knew there
was nothing to be so happy about. He drove us up the
winding road to Jerusalem and I was overwhelmed by
the barrenness of the hills, the blinding sun, and
a longing to go home, to sit under a shady tree and
drink a nice cold slurpy. When we finally arrived
at the “absorption center” (temporary
governmental accommodations for new immigrants), I
sat on a curb outside the administration office while
the rest went in to register. With sweat trickling
down my forehead I thought, “Why did my parents
take me here? Why couldn’t we just go to Disneyland
or the beach? I want to go home!”
I
was eight years old when my family emigrated
from Canada to Israel. My life would never be
the same again. There is a deep wound in me
from being uprooted from all that was familiar,
from what had been known to me as reality unquestioned,
from the environment in which I knew how to
communicate with others, in which I felt comfortable
and at home. Reality never had the same absoluteness
to it again. Language became associated with
struggle, not a natural tool of communication,
before becoming inseparable from who I am. From
the moment I landed at Ben Gurion airport, I
began the long and often painful process of
becoming and being bilingual.
|
 |
Immigration,
Black and white photo, Courtesy of Promislow
family album. |
Immigration
does not necessarily result in bilingualism, actually
it more often does not. I was lucky, or so I see myself.
English, my first language is a highly valued language
throughout the world, and so, although I was a minority,
I was not faced with the same devaluation and disregard
of my first language in my new environment that many
immigrants do. At school, when my class began to study
English a few years after I arrived, I participated
in classes for English speakers that continued throughout
my formal education. However, English was considered
a linguistic ability alone, segregated to English
lessons. Even so, through my first language I was
able to maintain a part of me that I had been before
immigrating to Israel. There was continuity to my
identity, to my family relations that sustained me
throughout my struggles in my new environment, throughout
the blows to my self-esteem, throughout the loneliness
amongst my peers.
Pressures
to assimilate were strong, and I was almost completely
isolated at school until I learned to speak the language
and behave according to what was acceptable:
I was the only
new immigrant in the class and although I was in a
sense a prestigious immigrant, coming from Canada,
‘The land of plenty’, and an English speaker,
the curiosity I aroused initially in my classmates
was quickly deterred by my heavy accent and lack of
understanding. In the two years I spent at that school
I was a silent observer. I was generally ignored by
my teacher and classmates, and was not expected to
do more than my limited Hebrew allowed .
If
you live your entire life in the same linguistic environment,
you may never realize the significance of your mother
tongue to the very core of your existence. When your
mother tongue is at risk of being lost because you
are in an a different language environment for an
extended period of time, you may become aware of the
fact that it is not replaceable, that you cannot express
your “self” or your feelings in another
language in the same way.
The
challenges that immigrants experience when they try
to translate their worlds and express themselves in
their second language are not only a matter of acquiring proficiency in that language, although
it does take between five and ten years for immigrant
children to become proficient in their second language
and catch up academically (Cummins, 2001a). Adolescents
and adults may never be able to bridge the gap between
their mother tongue and second language.
Our
mother tongue has particular significance to our being.
It is the language through which the norms and values
of our culture are acquired, and it is while learning
our mother tongue that we come to know the world and
ourselves. According to Skutnabb-Kangas (1981):
Many bilinguals
testify to the fact that their second language, which
they learnt later in life, feels colder, more alien,
less rich in words, less subtle and on the whole poorer
(...) it does not awaken the same deep layers of personality.
One is more oneself in one’s mother tongue.
(49-50)
When
I tried to write creatively in Hebrew,
my second language, as an adult many years
after I had become proficient in the language, I found
that I was unable to express myself as well as I did
in English my mother tongue. I had written poetry
in English for some years before sharing my poems
with a poet friend who told me that I must write in
Hebrew if I want to be published in Israel. I wrote
the following in the reflexive narrative of my experience.
But
Hebrew words were never enough for me to express the
deepest meanings, to sound right. I felt them to be
too simple and sparse. I had a strong feeling of not
having words, of my need to express myself blocked
by the barrier of language. I had to force myself
to continue to write in Hebrew...I disciplined myself
and read a lot in Hebrew. I even wrote in my journal
in Hebrew. It became more natural over time, but it
continued to feel inadequate.
(in press)
In the process of becoming and being
bilingual, over time, I have learned to bridge my
worlds, to translate myself from one language to another.
It is an ongoing process, even a struggle, in which
I engage in both consciously and unconsciously. I
am bilingual, I am proficient in two languages, I
am a part of two worlds, and although I may identify
at times more strongly with my mother tongue, this
does not mean that I am unable to express myself well
in my second language. “We find ways of describing
phenomena which are important to us, even if our language
does not provide the words for them” (Skutnabb-Kangas,
1981: 7).
Furthermore, my second language has
become as important to me as my mother tongue. Over
time it has become inseparable from who I am. “I
am the sum of my languages—the language of my
family and childhood, and education and friendship,
and love, and the larger, changing world” (Hoffman,
1989: 273). Although one’s mother tongue is
of extreme importance to one’s being, if one
has the good fortune of becoming bilingual, one’s
second language may take on as much significance as
one’s mother tongue, integrating into one’s
being, becoming a part of one’s self. The rift
that many immigrant learners experience between home
and school, their previous way of life and their present
experiences, is embodied in their experiences of language
and identity, in their inability to translate their
“self” into a second language. However,
human experience is fluid and subject to continual
change.
An interplay between languages and
selves brings about a transformation of identity,
allowing bilingual people to bridge separate worlds,
while being a part of both, creating a “borderlands”
between languages and identities. I am bilingual no
matter what language I speak. I have learned to express
myself in both languages. I speak Hebrew in English,
as I speak English in Hebrew. I speak Hebrish, a language
“in-between” with those who know both
Hebrew and English. Kanno (1996) a Japanese who spent
many years as a student in England and Canada feels
that “I [am] most comfortable when I am speaking
to another Japanese-English bilingual and can code-switch
freely between the two languages” (187, note
7).
For Anzaldua (1987), a Mexican who
grew up on the border with the United States, the
hybrid language in which she speaks and writes in,
Chicano Spanish that is neither Spanish nor English,
is an assertion of her identity. Anzaldua calls it
“The language of the Borderlands” (ii),
“a forked tongue, a variation of two languages”
(55). “So if you want to really hurt me, talk
badly about my language” (59). Languages “in-between”
such as Hebrish and Chicano English allow bilinguals
to communicate freely “in-between,” on
the borderlands of their languages, with other borderland
inhabitants. This phenomenon of language use is an
expression of the integration
of worlds, experiences and identities that bilingual
people experience.
Children
who were afraid to reveal their backgrounds...and
who pushed their cultural past into the unconscious,
or off onto their home life...feel uncomfortable,
acting one way at school and another at home.…When
they grow up, if they become conscious of their separate
worlds, they may look down upon, reject or deny their
native cultures; or they may discover that native
part of themselves left behind in childhood. When
they try to regain this early self at the adult stage,
integration of life will take time. (45)
In many multicultural societies such
as our own, the cultural and linguistic backgrounds
of many students are ignored and excluded from their
education. Research shows that minority learners are
continually discriminated against by the devaluation
and disregard of their original languages in mainstream
education (Corson, 1993; Cummins, 2001a ; Feuerverger,
1997; Nieto, 1994). For bilingual immigrants and/or
linguistic minorities in societies where their first
languages are not official languages, becoming and
being bilingual is a struggle against, and a defiance
of linguistic and social dominance, of monologic discourse.
Kouritzin’s (2000) rendition of her attempts
to bring her children up bilingual in Canada (in Japanese,
her husband’s mother tongue, as well as English),
and the opposition she is experiencing is a distressing
example.
I
also find myself facing the pressure that immigrant
parents must feel when they decide to maintain minority
languages at home. Strangers ask me when my children
are going to start learning English because they will
need it for school...I feel their disapproval, when
unsolicited, they tell me what they think of parents
who speak minority languages at home and then let
their children take ESL at public expense; I know
they are giving me a warning. (320-321)
 |
| Visiting
Toronto, Black and white photo, Courtesy of
Promislow family album |
Immigrant students experience tremendous
pressures to assimilate, to forget their past and
fit in as quickly as possible (Cummins, 2001a; Feuerverger,
1997; Nieto, 1994; Wong-Fillmore, 1991). Learners
receive a strong message “that if they want
to be accepted by the teacher and society, they have
to renounce any allegiance to their home language
and culture” (Cummins, 2001b). Children internalizing
this message often refuse to speak their original
languages at home and at school (Kouritzin, 1999;
Wong-Fillmore, 1991). Under these conditions children
can lose their ability to communicate in their mother
tongue(s) within 2-3 years of schooling (Cummins,
2001b). Although speaking one’s mother tongue
at home is an important factor contributing to language
maintenance (Feuerverger, 1989), it is not sufficient
in counteracting the forces contributing to language
loss (Cummins, 2001b). As students struggle to acquire
greater proficiency in English, attend classes in
English, do their homework in English, speak English
with their friends and watch television in English,
proficiency in their mother tongue diminishes over
time.
The loss of one’s original
language and culture can have detrimental effect on
the individual, resulting in the disruption of family
relationships (Fishman, 1989; Kouritzin, 1999; Wong-Fillmore,
1991); the loss of one’s sense of self (Kouritzin,
1999); low self-esteem (Corson, 1993; Cummins, 2001a);
and academic failure (Corson, 1993; Cummins, 2001a;
Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981; Wong-Fillmore, 1991). And as
Richard (Kouritzin, 1999) asserts:
Losing
the language is like losing half the man you are.
Not to lose the language makes me twice the man, so
the loss of the language is the loss of the soul,
I think, for an Indian person. It’s the loss
of the essence of the soul, not to know the language,
because you never know how beautiful you are until
you know your language...because you can only be described
in a foreign tongue, right? (71-72)
What is true multiculturalism? How
can education become truly multicultural? How can
we prepare educators “to engage in culturally
[and linguistically] responsive/relevant pedagogy
[...] that build upon the cultural [and linguistic]
resources that students bring to school” (Tabachnick
& Zeichner, 1993: 115)?
We are all born
into language; we know ourselves and others in language;
we word our worlds; we weave our worlds as we weave
our words. Therefore schooling must be centered on
the discursive practices that constitute the people
we are and are becoming. (Hasebe-Ludt, 1999: 39)
Voice
is identity, a sense of self, a sense of relationship
to others, and a sense of purpose. Voice is power—power
to express ideas and convictions, power to direct
and shape individual life towards productive and positive
fulfillment of self, family, community, nation, and
the world. (McElroy-Johnson, 1993: 86)
Although by Grade Twelve, I had long
since mastered the language of my surroundings and
assimilated its culture, my past could not be erased.
There was an important part of me that my teachers
failed to recognize, and made no attempt to understand.
In grade 12, after
misbehaving on a class trip, my homeroom teacher gave
the class a lecture on how some people will never
succeed in life. When she finished her speech, she
called out my name. I was not surprised. I knew who
she thought she was talking about. She then proceeded
to tell me to leave the classroom, since I was suspended.
I walked out of the room proudly thinking to myself,
“She doesn’t know who I am,” and
slammed the door. The door echoed through the hallways
as I walked out into the bright morning smiling. I
had put up a strong front and knew deep inside how
wrong she was, and that I would eventually prove her
wrong, but the damage was done and her harsh words
seeped through and haunted me for many years. Whenever
I do succeed it is always a surprise and never taken
for granted. I am forever doubtful of my abilities.
Slamming the door, hearing the echo
sound through the hallway. I am there. I feel its
vibration on my body, the assertion of my being in
spite of attempts to silence me. I would not give
in. But the doubts, the horrible pain poisoning me,
defining me nevertheless.
Five years ago, when Dr. Patrick
Allen suggested I explore my own experience in my
research, I felt my experience validated, my “voice”
recognized for the first time in my life by an educator.
In my subsequent exploration and reflections, I have
come to know my “voice,” shaky at first
but gaining momentum over time. It is the voice of
my unique experience of the world through languages
and cultures “in-between.” Through the
reflexive narrative of my experience (Promislow, 2000),
I was able to understand the sources of my strength
and the sources of my alienation from my adopted homeland.
| Maintaining
my first language and identity has been a source
of strength for me, and has contributed to my
ability to resist the devaluation of my identity
at high school and later in life, and to my
consequent success. My bilingualism, my dual
identity, can be seen as a challenge to monologic
views of reality, to stratified social structures
that do not include the diversity of its members,
that do not affirm difference. “Minority
students are ‘empowered’ or disabled
as a direct result of their interactions with
educators in schools” (Cummins, 2001a;
Feuerverger, 1994: 127). Educators are in a
unique position to encourage learners to explore
their experiences, to find their voice as I
have my own, recognizing and validating their
experiences throughout their education.
|
 |
Visiting
Jerusalem, Colour photo, Courtesy of Promislow
family album. |
According to Nieto (1994), in order
to create truly multicultural education there needs
to be a transformation of mind and heart among educators.
It is not in pedagogical methods that true multicultural
education can be created, but in the ability of educators
to envision and create borderlands in their classrooms
where all students belong. The experiences of those
who have maintained their mother tongue while becoming
and being proficient in their second language reflect
the multiplicity of reality and our being as created
in and through language, as well as our ability to
transcend boundaries through dialogue with others
and ourselves.
It is through the experiences of
immigrants who have maintained their mother tongue
of creating and inhabiting “borderlands”
between languages and identities, that educators can
learn how to create such spaces in their classrooms,
creating education that is truly multicultural. Educational
researchers such as Tara Goldstein (2003), Erica Hasebe-Ludt
(2002), and Ming Phang He (2002) are a part of a growing
body of scholarship that is in its very creation contributing
to the development of a language with which we can
continue the dialogue of Aoki’s “betweens,”
and provide educators with insight into and vicarious
experiences of what it means to live “in-between”
worlds, languages, and cultures through biographical,
autobiographical, and ethnographical renditions of
experience.
My experience
transcends language and place, although it is defined
by them, embodied in the geographical distance, in
the history contained in my languages, my life history,
the history of my identities. I am bilingual, I live
in two worlds in tandem. I am here both in English
and in Hebrew, I am both with my family in Israel
as I am here in Canada. I carry with me memories from
Canada as a child, before emigrating to Israel, before
becoming bilingual, memories of Israel of becoming
and being bilingual, memories of Canada since I returned.
My present is shaped by these memories, their continuity
fragmented by change. My experience is shaped by the
fragments of my present, not here but here all the
same...I am in Israel, but I am not there. I am here.
(Research journal 17, April, 2002)
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