After my Mom saw my last post, she told me the story of my great-grandma, who she was very close to. My great-grandma was born in Poland, but never spoke Polish (or German) in the home. Nor did she allow her sisters to speak Polish in front of her kids, even though the sisters spoke Polish all the time in their own homes. My great-grandma wanted her kids to grow up being American, even though she was proud of her own Polish heritage. Her sister's kids (my grandpa's cousins) never amounted to much because they could only speak broken English like an immigrant, while my grandpa's family fared much better. At least that is the story.
This is OK, I suppose, that someone values economic security as a priority in their life, and the lives of their children. Some people put religion first, some people put money first, some people put education first, some people put happiness first. Who am I to judge someone else's values?
But I believe there is a negative consequence to not speaking a native language in the home - that culture is not passed on to the next generation. This became apparent to me this Spring, when I worked in New York City. I was walking through Central Park and came across this statue (photo attached) of King Jagiello. It turns out he was a Polish King who united the Polish and Lithuathian peoples, and defeated the Teutonic tribes in battle in 1410. I had no idea of this when I saw the statue. In fact, I realized that I didn't know one single thing about Polish history prior to WWII. I realized the only "culture" that my great-grandma passed on was the custom of putting nuts in kid's shoes on St. Nicholas' Day, and how to make homemade chicken-noodle soup the way my great-grandpa liked it. At least that is the only culture that was passed on to me (that I can attribute). I wonder, then, if my great-grandma spoke Polish at home, would I have known who King Jagiello was? Is there a little rhyme in Polish that parents recite for their children in Polish about King Jagiello? Something like "this little piggy went to the market...?" I don't know. But I do know that I don't know a thing about Polish history prior to WWII and frankly, that is a shame.
In our great-grandmother's time, being monolingual in English would not limit opportunities in America since all aspects of the economy were based in this land. However, we live in a different world today. Our economy is greatly influenced by foreign markets. Why not encourage the use of the immigrants home language while they also learn English? This only makes them more competitive in the global workforce.
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