Moving Beyond the Limitations of Language
More specifically, the colonial standard of “excellence” that is English
In almost all of the writing workshops that I facilitate through Living Hyphen, there is always one prompt that I love to guide writers through. I kick off by asking everyone to create a list of words or short phrases from their native tongue, or their parents’ or ancestors’ native tongue. These can be words that they love dearly, words that they can recall hearing often, or words that they might not even know the translation of. I ask them to list any and all the words they can think of in under a minute. And then we take the next ten or so minutes to write a story using some of those words.
We then take turns reading out loud our stories to one another. Without fail, this exercise is always such a deeply moving experience. To hear someone speak out loud their stories with words in their native tongue sprinkled throughout is a precious gift. Oftentimes, we don’t really know the specific translations of the words spoken. But you can always feel the spirit of the story and the force of the intimacy of what is being shared.
As Living Hyphen’s Editor-in-Chief and writing workshop facilitator, I am acutely aware of just how significant language is. Language affects not just how we perceive the world but also how we move through it.
I am also acutely aware of just how limiting and limited it is. More specifically, I am acutely aware of just how limiting and limited the English language is.
According to the 2016 census, we live in a country where 7.5 million people — 21.9% of the total population — are foreign-born individuals who immigrated to what we now know as Canada. Many of these people may not speak English as their first language.
I always try to include that prompt with words in our native tongue because I want to highlight the richness that comes from integrating other languages in our work. I include it so that we may experience firsthand just how powerful it is to listen to each other’s stories and understand for ourselves how sometimes, English is simply not enough.
We read books and stories to enter new worlds, to transport ourselves to different places, and to learn about people across the spectrum of the human experience, and what better way to do that than through the very words of our native tongues? It is an opportunity to learn a new phrase, perhaps a cultural celebration or tradition, or maybe a feeling that English simply has no words for.
Entire fictional languages have been invented in service of propelling a story forward (think: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish, Star Trek’s Klingon, or A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones’ Dothraki…just to name a few) and so many people dedicate the energy to learning it. So why don’t we do the same for actual languages that exist in this world that so many people already use on a daily basis?
As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen once wrote:
Writers from a minority, write as if you are the majority. Do not explain. Do not cater. Do not translate. Do not apologize. Assume everyone knows what you are talking about, as the majority does. Write with all the privileges of the majority, but with the humility of a minority.
As a community that focuses primarily on the experiences of people who live in between cultures as part of a diaspora or who have been displaced in some way, both abroad and right here on this very land, language loss is often a painful and heartbreaking part of our experience. Assimilation is a process that works effectively to quiet, hide, and outright erase parts of our identity that do not conform to the standards of this country — standards built by colonialism to uphold white supremacy.
And at Living Hyphen, we are committed to working to dismantle the mentality of white supremacy that continues to devalue not only our languages but our lives, lands, and livelihoods too. A colonial standard that works so hard to pound the difference out of each and every one of us. A colonial standard that seeks to assimilate everyone, removing any traces of our origins. A colonial standard that seeks, as all things colonial do, to dominate.
Even our tongues.
That beautiful, hardworking muscular organ that shapes the words, the music that comes out of our mouths.
That’s why we always encourage our writers — both contributors to the magazine and those that attend our programming—to use words in their native tongue if they are called to and able.
You will always find words in different languages within the stories of our magazine or completely bi- or multilingual stories. And we intentionally do not highlight those words in other languages by italicizing them or surrounding them with quotes, because that is yet another way of Other-ing voices. Words in our native tongue do not appear differently in our thoughts or when we speak them out loud, and they shouldn’t appear differently on paper either. They are an integrated and seamless part of our whole selves.
Still Reckoning and Reconciling with Editorial Power
I’ve written previously about “Reckoning and Reconciling with Editorial Power” and the many existential questions I continually find myself asking in my role as editor:
Who am I to say whose stories get published, printed, and ultimately, told? Who are any one of us to hold this position of gatekeeper? What do formal education or credentials mean and what does it matter how many years of editorial experience you have? Who holds expertise in a matter and what is “expertise” anyway? How does that have any bearing on determining whose stories and life experiences get told?”
When I add the complex layer of language, those questions go even deeper and get even more complicated. Because of the way our society shames non-native English speakers, they are unlikely to share the stories of their very significant and powerful experiences — let alone submit their writing for publishing.
As editors, publishers, media makers, and ultimately, gatekeepers, how do we ensure that the voices of non-native English speakers are heard, valued, and amplified? How do we cultivate a culture that encourages their storytelling? How can we break down the limitations of language to value all voices and create truly inclusive and representative media?
As I delve deeper into this work, my questions become more radical, more difficult to answer. But my journey to finding the answer is also ultimately made all the more meaningful, more worthwhile.
There are many submissions that we receive at Living Hyphen where the writing may not exactly be “perfect” in the conventional sense. But writing that does not adhere to “proper” sentence structure or that has “incorrect” grammar does not play a large part in my editorial decisions. Again, these are colonial standards meant to uphold white supremacy and white supremacy only. What matters to me the most is that the stories themselves demand telling, that they reveal something that goes untalked about, that they fundamentally shift one’s perspective in some way, big or small. As Felicia Rose Chaves, educator and author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, encourages, I aim to “pursue the impulse, the energy, the heart of a [story].”
Even my editorial style might be considered a little unconventional. Contributors will tell you that I actually edit their stories very little. I will often make suggestions to clarify, to polish, and to shorten for brevity’s sake, but I prefer to keep the story as close to the author’s voice in its original, rawest form. I find it to be the truest.
You will often hear me say that we are all the experts in our own stories and of our own voices.
No one can ever teach or edit that.
Language As A Transformational Tool
At Living Hyphen, we aim to truly cultivate diverse voices, in the true sense of that word — by creating an inclusive and nutrient-rich environment full of the tools, resources, mentorship, and community to encourage the practice of storytelling, “perfect” English or not.
Language is one of the most powerful and pervasive ways we can transform our thinking. But if we rely solely on language structures that are built on systems of oppression, then we only serve to replicate those existing systems. But if language can oppress, it can liberate us too.
The choice is ours to make.
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