Growing up bilingual and what I will term "biracial" has forced me to live a dichotomy: Nigerian versus American, western versus eastern, Yoruba versus English. The distinction between the former and the latter weren't always clear, so while growing up I had to define myself at every corner and avenue of my life; I created my own culture.
This culture was determined by my naively prejudiced understanding of my two worlds--being African was inferior and being American was superior. My five-year-old mind could never understand how just because my parents were from Nigeria (the more insinuating word being Africa) had to make my family poor and malnourished. My eight-year-old mind could not understand why both African-Americans and Caucasians alike made clicking noises when I walked by or asked if I owned various forms of wildlife (i.e. elephants, lions, tigers, jaguars, etc.). If not for the strict values my parents enforced at home, I am quite sure that I would have abandoned the so-called lesser half of my identity.
How many others have had to experience this tragedy? I can only imagine as I've made dozens of friends who have either made it through the tortures of being bicultural, biracial, and/or bilingual or have allowed various parts of their identities to fall to the wayside--they identify with the more accepted version of themselves.
Language and Society, I feel, is my key to meeting others like me, who have learned to cope with their own dichotomous worlds: to see how similarly or dissimilarly they managed their personal cultures. Assuming there will be students whose sole language is English, or at least hoping there will be, my hope is that this course will allow me to show them that the key to world unification and globalization is based upon patience, empathy, and consideration for others; a balanced world can only be achieved under languages, not just one language chosen by the world's super powers. I know this course will open my eyes to the different language mechanics that cause people to see and understand the world differently. In doing so, I hope to aid the process of world unification by reaching out and helping those around me understand each other, so that idealistically the world of tomorrow in which I want my children to grow up, will allow them to freely be themselves knowing that they are special in being "biracial".
This culture was determined by my naively prejudiced understanding of my two worlds--being African was inferior and being American was superior. My five-year-old mind could never understand how just because my parents were from Nigeria (the more insinuating word being Africa) had to make my family poor and malnourished. My eight-year-old mind could not understand why both African-Americans and Caucasians alike made clicking noises when I walked by or asked if I owned various forms of wildlife (i.e. elephants, lions, tigers, jaguars, etc.). If not for the strict values my parents enforced at home, I am quite sure that I would have abandoned the so-called lesser half of my identity.
How many others have had to experience this tragedy? I can only imagine as I've made dozens of friends who have either made it through the tortures of being bicultural, biracial, and/or bilingual or have allowed various parts of their identities to fall to the wayside--they identify with the more accepted version of themselves.
Language and Society, I feel, is my key to meeting others like me, who have learned to cope with their own dichotomous worlds: to see how similarly or dissimilarly they managed their personal cultures. Assuming there will be students whose sole language is English, or at least hoping there will be, my hope is that this course will allow me to show them that the key to world unification and globalization is based upon patience, empathy, and consideration for others; a balanced world can only be achieved under languages, not just one language chosen by the world's super powers. I know this course will open my eyes to the different language mechanics that cause people to see and understand the world differently. In doing so, I hope to aid the process of world unification by reaching out and helping those around me understand each other, so that idealistically the world of tomorrow in which I want my children to grow up, will allow them to freely be themselves knowing that they are special in being "biracial".
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