HoDC: Humans of Davidson College is a series started by HerCampus Davidson to profile members of the community and to learn more about their stories.
“It is kind of weird to realize that I speak and write Spanish better than Vietnamese, my mother language. I never realized how badly I spoke Vietnamese until I left for Argentina. When I went abroad, I learned a language from the bare bones up. Learning a language in its original culture is such an immersive experience; I picked up Spanish so well. Half of what I think now is in Spanish. It is really exciting when this happens, but I am starting to feel a sense of guilt for not wanting to know more about my Vietnamese heritage. I think it has something to do with the fact that I don’t owe that language anything. I don’t feel like I am expected to know the language to be successful.”
“I find this sense of guilt always coming up. I feel guilty for wanting to go back to Latin America rather than wanting to go to Vietnam. Why am I more interested in going back to help those countries rather than boing back to my family home? These thoughts make me feel privileged for being born in the United States, but it makes me feel bad for those who had to come here by boat or by plane and were already learning their mother language and then lose that opportunity- or for those who are born here, and their parents stop using the language. I think this is a negative effect of the melting pot.”
“I gained more from the experience in the country than the country gained from me. I lost a sense of pride when people would ask me about my opinion about the Vietnam War or Vietnam’s current economic status. I felt guilty because I couldn’t answer those questions because I never took the initiative to learn more about it. I remember people asking, ‘What do you eat in Vietnam’, and my answer would be, ‘I eat what my mom gives me, but…I think it is frustrating to want to choose an identity and not being able to. Here in America, I am Vietnamese, but when I was abroad, I am not truly Vietnamese- I am American. I am only Vietnamese at a certain level, and I am only American at a certain level.”
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