Reuniting with My Mother Tongue is Bittersweet

My mother taught me best what home means — teaching me Tagalog growing up in Manila.

I’ve been on a journey of being a global nomad for almost 4 years now. I have experienced changes in myself that were predictable and expected. Then, there were these changes that happened unexpectedly.

My mother tongue is Tagalog — the official language of my birth country, the Philippines. When I moved to the U.S. at the age of 13, that all changed. English replaced Tagalog as my primary language of use — even in my thoughts which once were spoken in Tagalog were now happening in my head in English. This is the assimilation process for an immigrant. It changes you dramatically and innately.

Even though I remained fluent in Tagalog, I opted to speak in English with my parents who retained the language. I often felt embarrassed speaking in Tagalog with my parents in public, trying to avoid being seen as a foreigner who didn’t belong in the U.S. Hence, I have steered far away from my mother tongue believing for the rest of my years in the U.S. that it was a curse that could lead to my downfall within the hierarchy of a racial caste system that places white culture and norms on the top tier.

In the very deepest and darkest part of my mind, I wanted to fit in and pass as “white” as much as possible and that entails completely disassociating myself from my mother tongue. The only exception I made to this was when I…