On Losing Our Tongues

2023-10-19

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*Please hit the FOLLOW button to help support my work!* In January, I sent out a request asking listeners to send in clips about what language means to them - regardless of if they can speak their native tongues or not. And YOU all delivered! In On Losing Our Tongues, we're hearing diaspora folks from over a dozen unique ethnicities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East share what if feels like to struggle to speak their native language, or to be unable to speak it altoget...

*Please hit the FOLLOW button to help support my work!*

In January, I sent out a request asking listeners to send in clips about what language means to them - regardless of if they can speak their native tongues or not.

And YOU all delivered!

In On Losing Our Tongues, we're hearing diaspora folks from over a dozen unique ethnicities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East share what if feels like to struggle to speak their native language, or to be unable to speak it altogether.

Some themes in this episode include:

How monolingual people in the diaspora relate to the English language
Being bilingual in English & Spanish but being unable to speak your native tongue
Having to use Google Translate to communicate between generations of family

How immigrants process trauma and share family histories in the face of language barriers
The science behind language erosion and the impact of that on a person's relation to their culture
The story of Bangladesh: the first country to fight a liberation war around language

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A very special thank you to everyone who sent in clips or interviewed with me for this episode:

Abhinav Das, Shukri Ideis, Sophia Fel, Victoria Li, Annie Tan, Tommy Souravong, Farzana Haque, Marzia Chowdhury, Samantha Reyes, Stephanie Botchway, and Zamzam Dini

This is an episode made possible from viewers (*eh hem* I mean listeners like you ;), so please give this a share to help support my storytelling.

Shukriya, thank you!

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Listen/read my 4-min story on NPR/WBEZ: ⁠How a Queer Therapist is bringing bilingual (Mandarin Chinese to English) Mental Health Resources to people of color in Chicago⁠!