Final Project: Interview with an Immigrant

Language and Language Development

Nina Godette
I did not feel comfortable interviewing my second grade students, so I reached
out to a family friend we have through the Army. When my family first joined the Army
we became great friends with another Army family who were originally from the Ivory
Coast in Africa. While we were both stationed together the husband was granted his
American citizenship. Their first language is French and their second language is
English. The husband and the wife came to America in their late teens/early twenties.
They spent much of their early time in the U.S. in New York and Maryland. After living in
the U.S. for about ten years, meeting each other, and marrying, the husband decided to
join the Army where they would also help him to gain his citizenship. The following are
answers to the required questions:

1. Did your first language help or hinder you acquiring a second language? For
example, was your first language phonetically different from your first?
a. “My first language did not help me in getting a second language. I had to
learn from the people around me quickly to adjust to the new environment.
What did help me was that while in Africa, we were exposed to English in
different settings. So when we did come to America I knew some
language, but still made a lot of errors when trying to speak and have
conversations with others who were good at speaking English.”
2. What was the single greatest problem you faced in adapting to American culture
and how did you overcome it?
a. “While moving to America I had to adapt to everyday life. Housing, food,
and culture were all very different. People from my homeland are very
poor and do not have a lot. So to come to America and see people with so
many things was a little overwhelming and sad to see. I also had to
overcome missing my family members. I had to ultimately make new
family members with people I met and who helped me. I overcame these
challenges by always working hard, keeping an open mind, and knowing
that moving to America was to help better the lives of my family
members.”
3. What were some amusing incidences that you faced in becoming Americanized,
for example, misunderstandings of the language or culture?
a. “Even to this day I am learning different things that don’t translate between
cultures or languages and I have been living in the U.S. for the past 30
years. I just laugh about it, but sometimes I do feel self conscious that I
don’t know certain things.”
4. If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently?
a. “Jeanine and I have started a nonprofit, as you know, to help kids in our
home country have clothes, supplies, and basic necessities they need. I
wish that we or I would have started this much earlier. My goal in coming
to America and becoming a citizen was to help my family back home. It
took me way too long to give back to them. Every year we go back once or
twice to help the kids. We love seeing their faces light up and they are
 always so thankful. I think to myself how thankful I was to be able to get
citizenship here and provide my kids with a better life than what they
would have had in Africa.”
5. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of American culture?
a. “Some strengths are that America is a rich country and can help people if
they really want to, but a weakness I see is that people are also greedy
and selfish here. A lot of people in this culture want more and more and
seem to never be pleased with what they have. Another strength is there
are so many opportunities to pursue whatever you want. In my home
country work and options for one’s future are limited. Medicine and food
are not plentiful, so Americans should be thankful.”
6. What were the greatest problems that affected your learning of a second
language?
a. “The biggest problem I had was speaking correctly so others could
understand. I still have conversations with other soldiers mainly, and they
have a hard time understanding what I am saying either because my
words are out of order or made a mistake in my grammar use. I try to
correct myself or say the same thing a different way, but sometimes the
barrier cannot be broken down so it’s hard to communicate with my
peers.”

The Hounalin family are an amazing example of immigrants coming to America in

search of a better life. They are using their accomplishments to help others still in their
home country. Both Bamba and Jeanine continue to persevere and accomplish more
and new things. Bamba is now a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army and Jeanine recently
received her master’s degree in social work. Being immigrants in this country and
coming from a different first language has not stopped them from achieving various
accomplishments, while also teaching their own children French and English.
Based on Bamba’s responses to the required questions I can see connections to
some of the theories and methodologies learned throughout this course. First, based on
the language acquisition stage I am not sure Bamba ever went through stage 1 or 2 of
learning a new language. It sounds like while still in Africa and upon moving to America
he had to put himself in stage 3 which is the speech emergence stage. Bamba
benefited from having some background of the English language while he was still living
in Africa. After talking to Bamba it seems like he gained BICS rather than CALPS.
Because he was never in an American school setting learning the academic vocabulary
was of less importance that everyday conversational language. Based on Bamba’s
experiences it was most beneficial for him to stay in the sociocultural processes and
language development stages to stay positive and successful in his beginning years of
living in the U.S. He was able to get a job and work to provide for himself and his family.
Through these everyday interactions he continued to learn and expand his knowledge
of the English language. I finally made a connection to what was motivating Bamba to
learn English and be so successful in his transition of moving to America. It seems that
because he was immersed in the culture and every life of America he was more
motivated to learn to speak and use the English language correctly and effectively.
Bamba and his family are true inspiration!