When you move to a new country, your words start to change. At school and work, you pick up new phrases, and sometimes you catch yourself thinking or even counting in the new language. It feels exciting and a little weird at the same time. Your mind thinks in your native tongue, but your words come out with a new cadence.
At home, many of us try to keep our first voice alive. When we use those words, pieces of home show up right in the living room.
I grew up watching my mom figure this out. She moved here before I was born and worried a lot about school and work, so English took up a big space in our house. She would practice with us during homework and at the grocery store, and then later wish she had saved more time for our mother tongue Hindi. I remember video calls where my brother and I smiled and nodded while my grandma told a joke that we almost understood. We wanted to say something back in Hindi, but worried we would sound weird in broken dialect, while talking in English would leave my grandma trying to follow as we were. As the language mediator, Mom would encourage us to just speak out, and eventually we outgrew that awkwardness but seeing her juggle all of that is why I care about this now.
Over the years, I started picking it up in small ways. I caught phrases from old songs Mom played in the kitchen or from the way she slipped Hindi into sentences when English did not have the right word. Sometimes I would try using those same words with her, and she would smile like I had just remembered something important.
Staying close to the family language changes how kids connect. Now it feels less like a language I am learning and more like one I am keeping alive. Speaking Hindi in America will never feel the same as speaking it in India, but it is ours and that is what matters. Keeping our language alive happens in small moments we barely notice. My mom labels the spice tins in both languages and it all works just the same.
We are learning how to live here while carrying the voice that raised us. Each time we use it with our families, we move our culture forward one conversation at a time. Home lives at an address, and it also lives in the way we say hello
She Carries Culture 