The Worst Part of Learning English Was Losing Out On My Culture
Trying to reconcile who I’ve become with where I came from
She was fierce and intimidating. The image you get when you picture a successful businesswoman? This is her. She had an air of authority wherever she went, people shuffling uncomfortably in her presence and never hesitating to follow her lead.
I’m sure she wasn’t always like this, a time before she became this person. I wonder about the things that she had to endure, the things that chiseled her into this successful and commanding authority figure.
My aunt jetted off to the US in her twenties with the little money my parents borrowed. Arriving in a foreign land with barely anything in tow and not speaking the language, she struggled in the US with her broken and accented English.
She once told me a story in which people laughed at her and made fun of her mispronunciation of deposit as “dep-oh-sit” instead of the correct “dee-paw-sit”. From then on, she vowed to memorize the word and never make that mistake again. She kept vocabulary flashcards in her car’s sun visor and she recited the words at red lights. She did everything she could to fit in, to not let the world belittle her, knock her down, or see her as any less.
