Language plays a very important role in many immigrant families.
Immigrant
children learn English very fast while parents still use the language
they
usually speak. Children pick up new things very fast. Children at
younger
ages are easier to adapt using English as their primary language and
the
American custom because "School is the launching pad that sends them
into a
different world day after day, distancing them from their roots" (Arax
3).
This causes a big generation and culture gaps as people, like Xuong Lam
who
is the head of a close-knit family of Chinese refugees from Vietnam and
settled in the United Stated six years ago, at older ages cannot change
their cultural values; Lam says, "When you are old like me or my wife
and
mother, America cannot change you. How many years do we have left to
learn
about America? But the younger ones, they will change" (Arax 6).
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Translation of RMS book into kannadaThese
different speeds of assimilation sometimes creates generation gap can
be
easily solved if families communicate well. However, communication
itself
has already been a problem. Language is usually the barrier of allowing
a
thorough communication in immigrant families.
Lack of communication between family members is a serious problem. In
some
immigrant families, some older parents do not intend to learn much
English:
for example, Xuong Lam, and immigrant father who arrived here at aged
50,
"has learned just enough English to deal with his children's teachers
and
school administrators" (Arax 2). Typically, those immigrants who come
to
the United States at an older age do not view learning English as a
high
priority or more important than other things. Janice Choe, who acted as
a
young interpreter for her parents when she came to the Untied States at
the
age of 12, says that...