Languages

Growing up trilingual has always been something that I overlooked. It had always just been second nature: like how our hearts pump and circulate blood that courses through our veins, to the subconscious thought of breathing that sustains the balance of oxygen, allowing cellular respiration to provide all necessary bodily functions. Both are crucial and play in tandem with the other to sustain and bestow the nature of life.

I never thought twice when responding to my mother in Thai when she asked for my assistance in the kitchen. Or when my father and I would debate a plethora of topics in French on our morning commutes. I loved

being able to express myself in all three of my languages. I loved the nuances that the languages brought and the openness that I was allowed to observe through practicing and maintaining them. I loved the hidden meanings that couldn’t be found or understood when translated out of their original form. Despite the times at which I felt torn between the margins of all three of my identities, I cherished the love felt and shared between the lines of our cultural language norms.

As I grew older, I found it harder to consistently uphold, practice, and sometimes even identify with my respective cultures. Being brought up in the U.S. and the American educational system, I repressed my origins to better suit the homogenous and conforming society. It was only later that I realized the detrimental effects of the introspection and worked my way into loving and tending to the roots of the person that I am.

Like the processes of cellular respiration and the circulation of blood, I have learned to understand that my languages and the practice of my heritage are all a part of me in the end, whether it be on a biological or identitarian scale. Knowing that these practices make me who I am today, I now embrace and highlight the differences I used to ostracize. It is all part of what makes me a person, as the way breathing and heart palpitations are natural for the sustainment of life.