[CTcard]

... There was a sense of pride being American and the need to assimilate into America's predominant culture where speaking English was considered a must in order to fully participate. That doesn't mean Spanish wasn't spoken but it wasn't uncommon to see one person speaking in Spanish and the other responding in English. My mother sat us down at around age 3 and instructed us to only speak English, watch only American TV shows, and read books written in English (even if we couldn't really read yet). This proved critical to the success my brothers and I have experienced in this country but that is a different topic altogether...

The decision to go with "only speak English, watch only American TV shows, and read books written in English" is an interesting decision I see immigrant families struggle with. It's also an area where I see attitudes changing over time.

We wife's immigrant family (Korea) definitely went with the same approach. They were absolutely determined she would speak perfect English and blend into America no matter what. The strategy for that was an "English-only for the kids" decision. That was fairly tough, as my wife's mother appeared in the USA with barely a word of English - so it took tremendous drive for her to raise and instruct her kids in this way.

The English over all decision had benefits and drawbacks for my wife. Her English is perfect, she is certainly as American as can be, and she has done well. On the other hand, her Korean is poor, particularly speaking, and while she enjoys many aspects of Korean culture, she cannot quite fully participate. This is particularly obvious when we are in Korea, where ironically I seem to feel more comfortable than she does. This is because, first of all nobody expects me to speak Korean (including me), and secondly when we are there I have a network of colleagues I work and socialize with while she has mainly relatives with limited English.

I have never heard my wife express any regret over these decisions her parents made, but I find it ironic that she is pushing harder for our son to learn Korean than her parents did for her. However, we have the inverse problem her mother had, with our inability to speak enough Korean at home to really make it work. I think, broadly speaking, these days there is a bigger push from immigrant families to keep the old language functioning at home - but it is hard to succeed as our pop-culture is overwhelming.

[CTcard]

... There was a sense of pride being American and the need to assimilate into America's predominant culture where speaking English was considered a must in order to fully participate. That doesn't mean Spanish wasn't spoken but it wasn't uncommon to see one person speaking in Spanish and the other responding in English. My mother sat us down at around age 3 and instructed us to only speak English, watch only American TV shows, and read books written in English (even if we couldn't really read yet). This proved critical to the success my brothers and I have experienced in this country but that is a different topic altogether...

The decision to go with "only speak English, watch only American TV shows, and read books written in English" is an interesting decision I see immigrant families struggle with. It's also an area where I see attitudes changing over time.

We wife's immigrant family (Korea) definitely went with the same approach. They were absolutely determined she would speak perfect English and blend into America no matter what. The strategy for that was an "English-only for the kids" decision. That was fairly tough, as my wife's mother appeared in the USA with barely a word of English - so it took tremendous drive for her to raise and instruct her kids in this way.

The English over all decision had benefits and drawbacks for my wife. Her English is perfect, she is certainly as American as can be, and she has done well. On the other hand, her Korean is poor, particularly speaking, and while she enjoys many aspects of Korean culture, she cannot quite fully participate. This is particularly obvious when we are in Korea, where ironically I seem to feel more comfortable than she does. This is because, first of all nobody expects me to speak Korean (including me), and secondly when we are there I have a network of colleagues I work and socialize with while she has mainly relatives with limited English.

I have never heard my wife express any regret over these decisions her parents made, but I find it ironic that she is pushing harder for our son to learn Korean than her parents did for her. However, we have the inverse problem her mother had, with our inability to speak enough Korean at home to really make it work. I think, broadly speaking, these days there is a bigger push from immigrant families to keep the old language functioning at home - but it is hard to succeed as our pop-culture is overwhelming.