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Christina Wong Educational Autobiography 3 DRAFT 11/16/13 The American Language Growing up, English has always been my first language. I remember when my dad would always take me to my uncles house and my cousins and I would built a fort with pillows surrounding us, while we watched 101 Dalmatian, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid and many more. This was actually how I learned English! I picked up English pretty fast and was communicating with my parents with English and very little Cantonese mixed together (I called it Ching-lish). It never occurred in my mind to learn more Cantonese. I always told my mom that I didnt need to learn Cantonese because we are in the United States and how English is the main language for communication. At that time, I felt so proud to be able to speak English, to be able to make friends so easily because I knew how to speak the American language. The hallway was filled with laughter as I walked through the doors. It was another day for me at Monterey Vista Elementary School. I was so excited for recess because we were going to play basketball today. When recess finally came, two guys from my class were chosen as captains. I was so nervous because out of 12 people playing, there were only 3 girls playing, myself included. Surprisingly, I was the first girl to be chosen into a team. When the game started, Jonathan, my captain was dribbling the ball but couldnt shoot the basketball because he was being guarded by two other players. He faked it to his right but instead, passed the ball to me and I quickly ran and threw the ball to the net. WOO HOO! OOOHHH YEAHHH!!! My team mates cheered for me when I made the shot. Nice work! Well done Christina! That was awesome Christina! was all I heard from my team mates as they congratulated me and high

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fived me. As we continued the game, eventually my team won the gamy by 2 points. Yeah, I like my team! Jordon, another player in my team said. I felt so proud and felt like I was an important player to my team. I was about 8-9 years old when I first encountered a new and unknown environment. My family was going to Hong Kong. Wow was what I thought to myself I stepped through the doors. Ive never been to such a place before. I was at the airport with my parents and my brother and it was super packed and loud here. We were going on a family vacation to Hong Kong, where we were going to visit my aunt and cousins over there. I have never been to Hong Kong and this was my first time in an airport as well. It was such a huge place with lots of bright lights and a bunch of people walking in and out all around us. I felt so anxious and curious about everything. How can this place fit a huge airplane in it? What was that thing that people had to walk through that made beeping noises? These questions and many more was running through my head as I was looking all around me. I was nervous, yet excited about going on a plane and meeting my aunt and cousins over at Hong Kong. When we finally got to Hong Kong, we were greeted with hugs and kisses by my auntie and cousins. My parents were talking to my auntie and cousins in an excited tone. ?, one of my cousins said to me. I just looked up to him with a confused expression. I had no idea what he was saying. It was really hard to communicate with my aunt and cousins at first, because they didnt know any English at all and they couldnt understand my Ching-lish as well. My parents had to translate for us. My cousins took us out to hang out with their friends and took us to explore new places but it was hard to enjoy anything because I couldnt understand them. My cousins would joke around with their friends and I would just stand there outside of the circle, feeling completely lost and wanting to go back to home to LA. I was not used to this new environment and their language.

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But as time went on, I started to learn more basic Cantonese and I even taught my cousins some English as well! Things got a little easier after that. After learning the language better, it was easier for me to adapt to the environment and to communicate with my cousins. In The Perils and Promises of Praise by Dweck, Dweck talks about how a fixed mind set works. Dweck states that if a student has a fixed mind set, he/she will believe that their intellectual ability is a fixed trait. What this means is that because some students believe that they are already smart to begin with, there is no need for them to learn anything new because they are already smart. And how Dwecks fixed mind set relates to my outsider experience is because I had my own mind set. And my mind set was that I believed I didnt have to learn Cantonese because I lived in the US and the main language needed to communicate was English, the American language. And because of this mind set, when I was encountered with a new environment that had a different language, I was confused and lost. Also in Dwecks The Perils and Promises of Praise, he also states about how a growth mind set works. If a student has a growth mind set, they are willing to learn more. And Dweck believes that if a student is willing to learn more and the more they use their brains, the more the brain develops and grows. How Dwecks growth mind set idea relates to my insider experience is that when I finally accepted the fact that I need to learn more than one language, English. Even though I live in the US, and the language most common here is English, I am still an Asian American and have to keep my Chinese culture alive still. And in order to do that, I have to be able to speak my language and learn Cantonese. And the more I think this way, the more my brain will grow and develop. If I have a growth mind set, I am more open minded about learning more languages besides English that can help benefit me in the future.

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In Mother Goose in Monterrey by Sofia Gomez, she tells us that she learned English by watching and reading Disney movies and books. Its funny because thats exactly how I learned English! But unlike me, Spanish was Sofias first language. She also had that growth mind set to learn more language and she did that by watching and reading Disney movies and books. I on the other hand, actually started off learning English first and didnt have that same growth mind set as Gomez and Dweck, and refused to learn another language. I thought because I lived in the US and the common language used here was English, I thought I didnt have to learn another language because I wouldnt need to use another language here in the US, but boy was I wrong! I had such a fixed mindset on not learning another language that when I was faced with an unknown environment and language, I had no idea what to do and it was hard for me to communicate with my cousins. I later on, learned that learning a second language can and will benefit me later on in life. Another literacy narrative I have read, Always Living in Spanish; Recovering the Familiar, through Language by Marjorie Agosin, Agosin actually moved from her hometown Chile, to the United States. She spoke Spanish but because she was living in the United States, she also learned English as well. But Agosin didnt feel that English could truly express her love for her hometown Chile. She felt that Spanish expressed her true feeling about Chile better. Even when she is living in another country, she never left her culture or have forgotten her hometown Chile. She was still rooted to her culture. She was the opposite of me. Whereas I lived in the United States and went back to Hong Kong where my family was originally from, I did not know anything about my culture. I was not rooted to my culture as Agosin was. I didnt understand my home language and I was fine with expressing myself in English. But even with her love for Spanish, that did not stop Agosin from learning English, where the language is needed to get

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adapted to the new environment. I need Cantonese not only to adapt to the Hong Kong environment, but I also need it to communicate with my cousins over there and my family. In class, we discussed about James Baldwins If Black English Isnt a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is? and the themes of this reading. We came up with: Language, Literacy, Blacks Education, Who decides what is and isnt a language, and Identity. Baldwin states that language can define both the person who speaks it and the person who hears it. And he made a really clear point that language is the important key to ones identity. And that the language you speak can tell others where you are from. How my experience relates to Baldwins reading is that he mentions multiple times, that language is the key to ones identity. Even if I was born in the US and my first language is English, I am still an Asian American and my family mostly communicates in Cantonese. Although I have not been exposed to Cantonese when I was younger, Cantonese is my primary language that I need to communicate with my family. The language Cantonese is what identifies who I am. I am an Asian American who eats rice every day and celebrates a Chinese holiday called Chinese New Year every year. I do this because this is what my Chinese culture does and this is who I am. Another reading that can relate to my experience would be Mary Pipers What You Alone Can Say. In this, Piper talks about how your history, your unique sensibilities, your sense of place, and your language bestow upon you a singular authority. To me, I think Piper and Baldwin have the same idea or concept about language and its that language makes you your own person, or your identity. Piper also mentioned that Voice is everything we are. So what I think this means is that if everyone were to only speak English, we would never grow. But if we had a variety of languages, everyone would be able to communicate and express themselves differently. Now that I can speak Cantonese, I can now communicate and express

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myself to my family, which I couldnt do before because I did not know how to speak Cantonese. Piper is right, voice is everything we are. It makes us who we are today. And in a way, this reminds me back to Baldwins language is the key to ones identity. My experience on not knowing how to speak another language actually made an impact on me. Ever since then, I actually adapted to having a growth mind set. How I am achieving this is by learning not just Cantonese, but I am also starting to relearn Spanish again. The reason I am relearning Spanish is because I feel like Spanish will be very useful in the future and it will benefit me as well. In the past, I actually did learn Spanish but because of the fixed mindset I had about not learning another language besides English, I gave no effort in learning Spanish. Now that I am relearning Spanish, I can now help my mom at her shop in Chinatown and help her translate to her customers who only speak Spanish. For instance, I remember one time my mom was struggling to communicate with a customer, I stepped in and said Buenos das! Cmo puedo ayudar? I learned that it is better if you have a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset, only because having a growth mindset will allow you to grow and it benefits you in the end. What I want to get out of this particular English class in PCC is maybe to improve my writing. I feel that annotating my readings also helps me because when I am annotating, I feel like I understand the text a lot better. Something that I want you to know about me is that, it might take me awhile to actually be able to write a good essay. Im really no good at writing essays, so it might take me awhile to improve my essays and get the hang of how you are expecting us to write our essays. Because usually when I write essays, I dont really have a format. But in your class, you want us to relate whatever our topic is to one of our readings and I dont usually do that, so that will take me awhile to get the hang of. This is mainly what I want

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you to know about. My main concern would probably be the more pages I have to write, the harder it gets for me to think of something to write. Like before when I had to write 5 pages, I was able to do it but now that I have to write up to at least 7 pages, I am struggling a little, trying to think of what else to write. Another concern of mine would be that sometimes I have something I want to say or back up, but Im not good at wording it so it may sound off. Something I feel excited about is my writing improvement. I actually improved from my educational autobiography 2 draft to my finale copy of the 2nd educational autobiography. Hopefully, I continue to improve on my writing especially in this 3rd autobiography draft.

- How are you? Do you remember us?

Buenos das! Cmo puedo ayudar? Good Morning! How can I help you?