Élaina's Story

Sadie (voiceover):       Welcome to The Moving Project: stories about migration, language, and identity from around the world.

Over the past couple years we've been teaching a free online course on how to podcast

and helping an amazing group of people from around the world to tell personal stories about the experience of moving from one place to another. This is Élaina's story.

Élaina now lives in Scotland, but she grew up in Quebec. Her mum is French Canadian, and her dad is Filipino. In her audio piece Élaina tells the story of her relationship with her family's languages. Those that were passed on to her by her parents and those that weren't. Afterwards you'll hear a conversation we had just after she finished making her piece. In it we talk in a bit more depth about the content of her piece and about the strange and fascinating experience of interviewing your parents. But first here's her short audio piece.

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Élaina (voiceover):     For as long as I can remember I have spoken more than one language. When I tell people I grew up in a bilingual household they often ask me which language is my first language, but I honestly don't know. I was born in Canada and my mother tongue is French because that is literally what I speak with my mother. But my father taught me English at the same time even though that is not his native language. Then when I was 8, my family moved to Italy and my formative childhood years were spent in Italian. But I think that the question ‘what is your native language?’ is also a question about identity. And my answer will always be complicated. Now I'm an adult on the cusp of moving across the world again and trying to learn two non-European languages has prompted me to reflect on how language has shaped who I am and who I am becoming.

I don't remember ever struggling with language. I seem to have built my world seamlessly with words. My sister Emma however, had a different experience, so I asked her for her insight.

Emma: I had a hard time learning how to speak as an infant in the bilingual household because I would, for example, speak in French but use English syntax. For example,

in French you would say -- instead of saying the blue dress you would say the dress blue

but then I would invert that syntax and I would have a hard time learning both languages correctly. Yeah, and that translated perhaps to me having some difficulty learning how to read in French. Which is ironic now that I'm in the nature but yeah [laughs].

Élaina: When we grew up, my sister and I went down separate linguistic paths. I moved to Scotland to pursue my PhD which meant that I've been living in English almost exclusively for the past five years. Emma on the other hand moved to Montreal and is now basking in a more unilingual French culture. So I asked her how this felt since I personally have felt feelings of loss at not speaking one of my foundational languages.

Emma: Now that my partner is also French speaking it's like we're in a very francophone household. For me was strange at the beginning because I came from this bilingual household where we spoke like Fren-English, and we had all these cultural references as well in English. I discovered a lot of new cultural references, and I just spent my daily life in French.

Now it's weird because I don't get to practice my English as much.

Élaina: This change in environment had an unexpected consequence for Emma.

Emma: What I find the hardest is communicating with our father, especially on more serious topics. Whatever it's like I don't have the vocabulary. Or I do but it doesn't come as quickly to me, and I rush. I tend to talk about only like cooking and basic stuff with my dad because we can't connect as well.

Élaina: Emma's reflection on how her sporadic use of English affects her relationship with our father got me thinking. I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that English is not my father's native language. Rather, it is the language he chose to teach his children even though,

as a refugee from the Philippines, he speaks three others. I admit that I struggle to understand this decision, especially because now as an adult I wish I had more access to my Filipino heritage. So I decided this was the perfect time to ask my father some delicate questions about his experience with language, identity, and moving.

Élaina: Can you introduce yourself and your relationship to me?

Rafael: Hi, my name is Rafael Mamaril, and my nickname is Bobbit. And I'm the father of Élaina.

Élaina: You grew up speaking three languages. You would speak Tagalog and you would speak each of your parents’ dialects and then you learnt English at school. And I would like to ask you about that experience.

Rafael: Well, growing up was a bit confusing [laughs] simply because we had relatives or help that came from different provinces where my parents came from. My father was from north of Manila and they speak -- well I guess they call it Pangasinans now. You know it used to be called Pangalatok, the province of Pangasinan. And my mother spoke Hiligaynon, which is the dialect around the Iloilo, although she was in Negros Occidental.

So I grew up in Manila which later on I moved to Quezon City which spoke Tagalog mainly.

Growing up I heard these three dialects and sometimes it gets confusing. Simply because certain words would mean differently in another dialect and it's funny sometimes.

Élaina: This was all in his home life. At school however, it was another matter.

Rafael: Of course our main instruction in school was English and, in the beginning, we were told not to speak Tagalog so that we can improve our English. With these four different languages going on and growing up it could be confusing and which identity also because which dialect should you learn. Course we had to learn Tagalog to play with our playmates and English to succeed in school and if we go to -- which we did go during the summer vacation to my father's province it was best to fit in.

The languages primarily I would say was used to communicate so that we can fit in in the different situations that we were in. It's not so much as one better than the other, it's what was more useful. So it's utility really that drove the use of a certain language.

Élaina: My father keeps saying that his experience of language was an experience of trying to fit in. It sounds obvious but for some reason this idea bothers me. Perhaps because I feel that by not speaking Tagalog I'm robbed of a part of my identity as a half Filipina in some way.

But when I asked if he thinks if Filipinos attached their identity to language like many other immigrants do, my father disabused me pretty quickly.

Rafael: No. No, definitely not. There's different dialects. From the start to choose to speak the national language for most Filipinos is already one step beyond what they normally speak at home. And so that identity with the language it's not as big with -- I guess as high priority for my age group and before that in fact was English is to succeed wherever you are. Filipinos in other parts of the world tend to adapt easily. They don't cling to language for identity.

Élaina: I'm not going to lie; this answer frustrated me. Mostly because I have romantic ideas about heritage languages that probably has more to do with my being a second-generation immigrant, bathe in individualism, and full of anxiety about authenticity. So I wanted to press my father for a less pragmatic response, but he had already taken the reins.

Rafael: I mean I say this simply because my background is not pure Tagalog. Some Filipinos

might have a nostalgic feeling for us ‘aw no, I want to speak’ because that's all, that's the only Filipino dialect that they spoke when they were in the Philippines. I guess part of it psychologically is I don't want to choose my mother's or my father’s, or you know. So I spoke -- I try to understand everything. Psychologically it's not -- I'm not attached to it.

Élaina: I probably won't resolve my feelings about not being taught Tagalog as a child. And I can't separate them from the fact that my father was right; English has been very useful to me. But more than that it is a language that means family to me. As I record this, I'm on a 20-day Duolingo streak in Vietnamese as I prepared for a move in the coming months. I don't really know what the future holds for me, but I know that each language I learn and practice will shape me into the person I am. As they say in Vietnamese: tôi là tôi. I am me.

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Sadie (to Élaina): In your episode you talk a little bit about your early childhood and growing up in -- is it in Quebec? In Canada?

Élaina: Yeah, Western Quebec.

Sadie: Western Quebec. And having two languages in the household. I wondered if you could maybe, just to start off with, if you could tell us a bit more about that?

Élaina: I'm the eldest of five children. My mother is a French-Canadian white woman who grew up mostly in Quebec and only learnt English late in life when she was 25 and moved to London. And my father is originally from Manila in the Philippines. They met speaking English in Canada, but it became very clear for my mother when the relationship got serious that she's like it is non-negotiable that you learn French because I will be speaking French to my children, and I want you to understand. And so that was kind of their agreement.

They got married, they had me, and my father was kind of learning French during that time, but he was always speaking English to me and my brother who came right after me. But by the time my sister Emma came around he was beginning to feel more confident and would start practicing his French with the baby. I don't think we can take that in isolation with the fact that my sister and my other brother had difficulties learning to read because of probably like neuroatypicalities. It just coincided with the fact that my father had only spoken English to me but with Emma he had started to practice his French with her and so she got very confused.

Sadie: Okay. So was he like not beginner level French but he was -- he maybe wasn't completely fluent in French yet?

Élaina: Exactly. He wasn't fluent and I guess in a way the baby was a non-judgmental language partner. [laughs]

Sadie: Of course, yeah. It's really interesting and I think it’s -- I think -- I feel like maybe not enough research has been done about the roles of siblings when you're learning languages and the order that you come in in the family and how much that plays into your linguistic experience.

Élaina: Absolutely.

Sadie: I was speaking to someone just yesterday actually who's got two kids and they’re growing up speaking Polish and English but the older of the two kids is -- the younger of the two kids is very much more comfortable with mixing languages and things and part of it is that she does that with her big brother. So her big brother is like another language input apart from her mum and dad's kind of mixing things up a little bit and making the linguistic environment more interesting.

Élaina: Absolutely. I have a 14-year difference between myself and my youngest sibling. By the time she was born we were singing songs and we were really into specific movies that were not probably appropriate for a newborn, like Sweeney Todd and things like that. So she was raised with us singing a lot of weird movie soundtracks and musicals around her as well. So like by the time she was 2 she would sit in her car seat singing [sings] ‘hell fire, dark fire’ [laughter].

Sadie: So it's a whole different set of language input right there.

Élaina: Yeah. Exactly, exactly.

Sadie: What languages do you speak to your siblings in?

Élaina: I mostly speak French to my siblings, but we've always spoke Frenglish. We'll speak French to each other but then we'll have tangents in English. Or I'll bring in a reference in English and then we’ll just switch back and forth like volleyball.

Sadie: Yeah. John obviously speaks Gaelic but he very much mixes -- like him and his friends and everyone who he speaks Gaelic to will mix between English and Gaelic a lot. Sometimes not just switching from one to the other but within the same phrase or sentence.

Élaina: Yeah.

Sadie: There's one that I really like where they’d be like ‘oh did you give him the go-a-mach?’and it's did you give him -- so it’s like ‘did you tell him to go away?’ but it's like ‘did you give him the go away?’ It kind of uses Gaelic grammar and then English words and yeah.

Élaina: I grew up in a western Quebec which is borders with Ontario. So there's a lot of --

there's a big bilingual population. Also, even if people are not fluently bilingual, they will import words. You could speak a full sentence in French where every other word is English or like a Gallicized version of an English word. I also grew up having a lot of Franco-Ontarian friends. So those are like heritage Frank -- French speakers but who live outside of Quebec.

They have their own linguistic traditions, and they'll often speak with an English syntax but French words. I was exposed to different kinds of dialects if you will.

Sadie: I think it's really interesting because I think it's something that quite a lot of maybe, sometimes, parents and educators get a bit nervous about when people mix their languages. I think sometimes people get nervous when they hear kids mixing languages, right? Because they think the kid’s confused but then when you hear adults speaking naturally and feeling comfortable with each other, then adults mix their languages all the time.

You mentioned your dad. I think for me the story of your dad and his relationship with his languages and how he's passed that on to you guys is -- or not as the case may be -- is really, really interesting. I wanted to ask you a bit about -- so sometimes you mention that sometimes you wish your dad had raised you with Tagalog. You mentioned that that is something you sometimes feel now as an adult but when did you first start to feel that do you think? Was that something that was there in your childhood?

Élaina: I think it really changed when I became a teenager and in general all of his children were getting older. So he had more time to devote to social activities and he got really involved with the local Filipino Canadian community. That's where I felt it because everyone turned to me and expected me to know and then I didn't. And then I would see other children of Filipinos there, people my age who were fluent, and then I felt left out of that.

There's an interesting Canadian podcast called Bad Filipino about this. You feel like a bad Filipino; you're just like oh, I don't know how to connect with this side of the culture that suddenly my father seems very interested in and very proud of and now I feel disconnected.

Sadie: Hmm. Yeah, I can definitely relate to this as someone with a mum who is bilingual in Polish and English who tried to pass it on to me a little bit but then it just, she was busy being a new mum, my dad didn't speak Polish, and it just didn't happen. I actually yesterday was presenting about some of my research with young Polish people and a couple people came up to me afterward to me like ‘oh, I'm Polish’. I was very excited to meet them, and we had a great chat, but my first gut reaction was fear in case they tried to speak to me in Polish.

Élaina: Yep

Sadie: I would be able to say cześć and a couple of words but not be able to understand full sentences. I felt really nervous after having stood up and talked about this research that I’d done and mentioned my own Polish heritage. I felt suddenly like a bit of a fraud.

Élaina: I mean I completely understand that feeling. I have a friend who's Mexican American who was raised not speaking Spanish and she was saying her relationship to the Latinx community especially in the US is a bit fraught because of that. She feels she doesn't have the experiences that she could have shared with Spanish speaking Latinx people. We both gravitated towards decolonial studies and then reflecting on the fact that both of our languages, in my case French and her case trying to recover Spanish, that they're also colonial languages. And so then prompted being like well, Filipino would be -- although it's not unproblematic -- would be interesting to revisit for that reason and of finding a non-European language to learn.

I absolutely understand yeah, feeling like a fraud. I always feel like I have to apologise when I meet other members even of the diaspora and they're just like do you speak? I was like, no. I mean I don't really have anything to apologise for because it wasn't my fault. I didn't make this choice, but I still feel like oh, maybe I shouldn't take up space in this group. Maybe I shouldn't speak up because I cannot represent.

Sadie: I suppose if the language is part of what makes you belong in that community or part of what ties you to that community -- not the whole of it but you know. That's really interesting as well because your dad said in your interview with him that for him that's not, he doesn't feel like his Filipino identity’s hugely tied with language. That was really interesting because, as I was saying there, I really connect with that feeling of oh no, I'm not -- maybe I'm not properly Polish if I can't speak Polish. I feel quite disconnected from my heritage that way. But that is then very different from my mum who feels like the Polish language is a huge part of her heritage and what connects her to her roots. So it's interesting that your dad doesn't feel that way.

Élaina: Yeah. It didn't really surprise me because he had hinted at that all my life but now that I actually asked him the question…

Sadie: Was this the first time you'd really asked him about that?

Élaina: Seriously yeah. Because he would always skirt it be like uh… Again, I don't know how much of that has to do with the fact that he grew up in a generation in the Philippines under the Marcos dictatorship, where there still was a lot of influence from American imperialism, and they were taught only speak English at school. This is the language of success. This is the language that will open doors for you and again a class marker. If you know how to speak English fluently it puts you in a different class.

I can't relate to that, but I feel like a lot of people have been put in settings where they're told not to speak their home language or even their social language in school. I don't know what that does to a person when you're educated from such a young timing; this is the language that is useful, this is the language that you need. In my own anecdotal experience I've met Filipinos around the world who will gladly learn whatever language is the main language. I've never found a Saturday Tagalog class like you would find a Polish class or a Mandarin class. I don't have any studies but there doesn't seem to be that kind of appetite for Filipino immigrants and migrants to instil the language in that sense.

It is interesting but it is also -- the more I delve into Filipino philosophy and things, this idea of harmonizing and this idea of putting a lot of value on fitting in and getting along, seems to be a cultural thing as well.

Sadie: Okay. That's interesting. Your dad mentioned that Tagalog was not really the language of home for him anyway because his mum and dad both spoke different languages. Is Tagalog kind of the like -- so English is the language of education, right, -- or was for your dad. So then Tagalog: is it just a lingua franca language for a lot of people?

Élaina: Yeah. So, again, the Tagalog is a created language that is mostly based on the language around the capital of Manila and then they…

Sadie: I did not know that.

Élaina: Because I think there's like – okay, please check this but I think there's about 170 different languages spoken in the Philippine Islands.

Sadie: Wow. Okay.

Élaina: It was kind of like when the French decided French is the official language and -- but it was whatever was spoken around Paris and then they imposed it on the rest of the country. So it was kind of like that. They took a few words from other languages. The history of Tagalog is also embedded with a history of trying to unify a Filipino identity in the wake of or against Spanish colonization. It is not what most Filipinos learn at home. They'll learn their own languages at home and then the lingua franca will be Tagalog. My grandparents could only speak Tagalog to each other. So in that sense it was a household language because that's how his parents could communicate but then they could speak to him and his siblings in their own language.

Sadie: Okay, okay. Your dad mentioned that he didn't want to use one language or the other, so Tagalog was the neutral one. It wasn't like picking his mum or his dad which is quite interesting.

Élaina: I found that interesting in terms of him thinking about passing on language; like it would feel strange. I would feel strange that way as well. If I ever have children, what language do I teach them? Right now my…

Sadie: Mmm, what language do you teach them?

Élaina: My partner is unilingual English speaking so I feel like I would teach them French. It's when you're thinking about it that way of which one of my parents do I pass on?

Sadie: Yeah.

Élaina: Yeah, it's very interesting.

Sadie: I guess it a lot of it maybe -- that decision as well of what language do you teach your -- I guess a lot of it is maybe to do with, like that decision would be affected by where you are as well. Because if you're in a dominant English-speaking country then there's no chance they're not going to pick up English really. [laughs] So you can quite confidently be like…

Élaina: My mother always said English is like a virus: you catch it.

Sadie: Yeah. You guys'll be fine with English. And then you can quite comfortably, in somewhere like Scotland, you can quite comfortably, you could quite comfortably raise a kid speaking French not worrying that they're not going to come across English because they will. It's probably true most places actually.

Élaina: Yeah, but then if I have my children here, do I want to send them to Gaelic School?

Because that's the history of the place and the land and the people here, but it's not part of my heritage specifically and I don't speak it. There's lots of things to consider.

Sadie: Yeah, they do have things if you send your kids to Gaelic school there's quite a lot of lessons for parents. I was looking into this a little bit recently because I want to do some Gaelic lessons and quite a lot of the Gaelic lessons in Glasgow are mostly attended by parents kids at the Gaelic school. Which is interesting. It’s a big commitment I think in a good way.

Élaina: For sure.

Sadie: And then you're now learning Vietnamese.

Élaina: I am. Using Duolingo which is an imperfect way to learn but I like to gamify my life, so I like to keep my streak alive.

Sadie: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been using Duolingo for Gaelic as well and yeah, it's interesting. I don't know if it's my very favourite language learning method, but it does just fit so neatly into your life, doesn't it? You can just wake up in the morning and do…

Élaina: It does. I think ideally, I would have an actual teacher and yeah, a class where I could speak to other people.

Sadie: I think it's funny with a lot -- I suppose under a lot of what we've been talking about with language learning there's this theme of well, why? What's the purpose of learning a new language or what's the purpose of passing a language onto your kids? I think your dad said in the interview that for him which language he spoke was always quite a functional thing, rather than he didn't always feel like it was something to do with culture and identity. It was just this person speaks this language so that's the language I'm going to speak now. I think that's what he meant. That's how I understood it anyway.

Élaina: I think so. That also tracks with his willingness to learn French for my mother. My mother was like this is the language I speak and it's important to me and so he as an adult decided to learn a whole new language that way. I think for him it's more important to be able to connect with the people than to think of the language as holding some kind of essential identity. For him it's more -- if I go visit my cousins, I want to be able to play and to talk to my cousins. It's not about what language we speak, it's how we communicate with one another. In a kind of weird disinterestedness or in a way distance you have.

Sadie: Yeah. There's an understanding I think in his interview as well, that languages could hold cultural identity. They do hold cultural identity for some people but he's just personally like nah, it's more of a practical thing.

Élaina: He does say it's like at least for his generation. I don't know if you speak to newer or younger Filipinos now for in the diaspora maybe that's changed. Also, because now we have the internet and we can speak to lots of people, so being able to stay connected might be -- and speaking the language might be important. For example in academia, it's very rare for things to be taught and read in Tagalog. In academia in the Philippines, it's still very much English. There's a push of people who, scholars, who insist on publishing in Tagalog but it's very much a minority. It's also like within the actual country of the Philippines there isn't a unified view of what is the role of the national language.

Sadie: That’s interesting. It's great interviewing your parents, isn't it? I interviewed my mum recently about Polish and just realised -- because I think with your parents you feel like you -- well you do know them really, really well and you just have an impression of how they feel about things built up from hundreds of little sideways comments over the years, but you so rarely just actually question them directly to like…

I found out there was lots of stuff that I didn't really know how my mum felt about it. I had a general vibe of how she felt but even things like the fact that speaking in, speaking Polish is really important thing to her. I knew it was from observing her over the years, but I’d never really asked her why. And it was a really useful thing for me I think to ask my mum. Not just because of what I found out but just to find out about my mum, you know?

Élaina: I completely agree. I got very emotional actually during the interview and even listening back editing it because these were all questions that we -- I had but had never asked out right. And things like him saying I don't want to choose between my mother and my father. I had never heard him say that ever in my life. Also it's interesting for me as I said, when I feel apologetic about not being able to speak Tagalog and he seems to have no regrets in a way. He's just like this is what I did, this is what you do, and we move on. There are more important things in life, and I just sit there with my feelings of like, but I want to connect to this heritage.

And he’s just like yeah, I wanted you to have a family. As I said in the clip, I -- English has become a language of family. Not only that I speak to with my father but that is part of my family life with my siblings and all of the cultural references we have. So in a way he did gift me that. Because I grew up in a bilingual environment where you implicitly had to justify

which language you chose to speak when, I think yeah, I grew up feeling an emotional attachment to English in a way that perhaps my father feels towards his parents’ languages as well. He didn't pass on the actual language, but I feel like the language of family is still there.

Sadie: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Did making the episode help you find any kind of linguistic peace or not so much?

Élaina: No, it was just very frustrating. I think that’s interesting is when you do -- I have a hypothesis and then you test it, and then it doesn't turn out. I think it was frustrating but in a productive way.

Sadie: Yeah, I feel the same I think about the one that I made with my mum. I think it didn't necessarily settle anything, but it got me thinking about things that I might not have thought about otherwise, which is good.

Élaina: How does your mum feel about not teaching you Polish?

Sadie: Um… I thi… hmm. Well, yeah. We spoke about this in our interview, and I think she's kind of got mixed feelings where I think she would quite like us to speak Polish really. At one point I was like but we're not very Polish and she was like well you weren't, you're not, you were raised in Scotland and that's fine with me. That's okay. I don't think she has massive regrets. Well the way she put it at one point was she said if you'd been born 20 or 30 years later, I think I would have raised you speaking Polish because there would have been Polish moms and toddlers’ groups and things like that.

Élaina: Yeah, exactly.

Sadie: And there would be lots of other Polish people around. The time that I was born there weren't a lot of, well there weren't so many Polish people in Scotland, at least not newly arrived Polish people who still used Polish a lot. There also wasn't such a kind of -- there wasn't – yeah, I think still there's maybe not a massive public understanding of it's okay to raise your kids with more than one language but that's definitely grown a lot since I was a kid.

Élaina: Yeah, that's also my father who immigrated to Canada 1975. The push was very much practice your English. I think there is something to be said about a certain generation of immigrants who are just like we've gone through so much to get here and now we need to assimilate as much as possible. Now it's in a way the privilege of the second generation to be like hey, but I want to have access to this and they're like well, we just wanted to survive so.

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Sadie (voiceover): A massive thank you to Élaina for sharing her experience and her insights and for being so open and generous. Thanks too of course to her sister and her dad for taking part. Thanks as always to the Accentricity team: John McDiarmid and Martha Ryan, to Seb Philp for making music, and to Aileen Marshall for the transcription. And thank you for listening.