Phase 1

Abstract

In this essay, I was tasked with writing about a specific moment that was important to my language and literacy history. I decided to focus on two key moments of my life that impacted my view and perspective on different languages and how they’ve changed my ideologies.

Language and Literacy Narrative Essay

Cafeteria. 7^th grade. I just picked up my food and was heading back to my lunch table. The walls were made of off-white tiles, with sky blue bricks lining the bottom. Rows and rows of tables stretched across the marble floor, like a maze with no specific path to the exit. I made my way through the maze and got back to the table, where all my friends had been sitting there waiting for me. I put my tray down, and as I took off my bag, a notebook fell out. This was the notebook that I had been practicing my Arabic in. It looked very old, with creases all over the carboard cover, and pages torn a thousand different ways. I frantically tried putting it away, embarrassed by my clumsiness, but it was too late. “What is that, hieroglyphics?” Chuckles spread across the table. I nervously laughed and said “No, actually, I’ve just been practicing writing Arabic. You guys wanna see?” “No thanks, I don’t wanna see your terrorist language.” What a comedian. The table exploded into laughter, and the owner of the joke grinned with a sense of accomplishment. I had been used to these remarks by now, so I didn’t really care. Another goes “So you following in your uncle Osama bin Laden’s footsteps?” More laughter. Everyone decided they wanted to make their jokes, like a competition for who’s the funniest. “What does that say, Allahu Akbar?” “Does that teach you how to fly a plane?” “Why does it look so weird like caveman writing or something?” “Please don’t blow me up, I’ll give you a dollar.” Humorless joke after humorless joke, they all said what they had to say. All their unoriginal, boring remarks that I’ve heard a thousand times already. It became more annoying than hurtful, because all their laughter was clearly forced. It made me self-conscious about my language, made me want to keep it a secret from everyone. I was ashamed of my Arabic, ashamed that I spoke such an “inferior” language. I had wished to be normal, to only speak English. It was my “friends” that made me hate my heritage and where I came from. But halfway across the world, I learned a very valuable lesson.

Fast forward to two summers after, I was in Egypt with my family. One night, my cousin and I had to go out to buy the groceries for dinner the next day. We took our usual walk to the store, only a couple blocks away. The streets reeked of hookah and cigarettes. The bustling sounds of people talking and laughing as they sat at cafés that lined the street. The cool breeze of a night desert blew down the road, lifting sand and dust into the densely polluted sky. It felt like home. As we were walking, we ran into my cousin’s friends. The three of them walked up to us, almost in perfect formation with the leader in front and the other two behind him. They all said hi to each other and then my cousin introduced me. He told them I’m his cousin from America. It almost became part of my name. “From America,” almost like a suffix such as Jr. or Sr. Without even hearing my name, they all looked at me with wide eyes, like they had seen a ghost. It’s a strange feeling, seeing that same reaction every time I’m introduced to someone. I gave them an awkward smile, trying to show that I’m no celebrity, just a normal guy visiting his family in Egypt. They turned and looked at each other, their eyes still wide, grinning from ear to ear. The one in asked me in a very broken English “What’s your name?” as all his friends laughed at his accent. I told them my name was Abdelrahman. And as expected, the next question was, in Arabic, “Say something in English.” It’s become a routine at this point, always the same three questions the exact same order. I said to them, in my fluent American English “What do you want me to say?” They exploded in laughter. They couldn’t believe that they were talking to an American. An American! Like I was some king who came to visit the village. One of them still didn’t believe me, he thought I was making it up, that I was making random sounds and pretending it was English. My cousin smirked, enjoying the whole interaction because he’s used to hearing me speak English. As the laughter and excitement died down, the one in front grinned deviously, and I immediately knew what he was going to ask next. “Teach us some curse words.” Reluctantly, I taught them a few curse words, half of which they already knew, but could barely pronounce. They started using the curse words on each other, still in their Arabic accents, and eventually even added their own Arabic twist, combining Arabic and English curse words. It was amusing watching them, like little children playing hot potato, but with curse words. It’s become so normal, every summer it’s the same thing. I was an elephant in a circus, a shark in an aquarium, a bear in a zoo. Everyone is amazed by the fact that I speak English, something I do every day, something that I never even thought about because it’s just a part of who I am. A simple way to convey ideas, like in Arabic or Spanish or Russian or Turkish, but they’re amazed by my ability to speak it. That moment meant nothing to my cousin or his friends, and they’ve probably all forgotten about it, but that’s something I will never forget, as it has opened my eyes to so much, things I could never see if I only spoke one language.

These two experiences made me realize how powerful language can be, and how advantageous it is to be bilingual, or even trilingual. Arabic, to Americans, is viewed as an inferior language, the language of terrorists. A lot of stereotypes exist around it, and they would never even consider learning it or studying it. English, however, the language of money as I’ve heard some people call it, is viewed as a luxury to some Egyptians. A luxury that many of them can’t afford or is inaccessible to them due to a poor educational system. English and Arabic are both identical. They are both methods of conveying information, whether it be through speech or writing. No one language is “better” or more complex than the other. I’ve been grateful for my language and literacy background after these two experiences, because many aren’t as fortunate as I’ve been. Simply being able to read, write, speak, and understand English and Arabic lets me see the world through two very different perspectives, because a language on its own has a perspective. I realized however, that society doesn’t treat languages as equal. People always put one language above another, it’s almost always English. Anyone who is fluent in English already has an advantage over millions of students across the world, because that’s the language of money, the language of power. I hope someday that society realizes that every other language is just as capable as English, if not more, because there are words in Arabic that you cannot describe in English and there are words in Spanish that you cannot describe in Arabic. The assimilation of English all over the globe has made people, like my cousin’s friends, think of their home languages as less capable than English, when it’s the opposite. This experience opened my eyes to the diversity in the world and how powerful language can be. But no one language is better than another, and every culture and language must be equally represented because having one all-powerful language is inherently unjust and unfair to other peoples around the world.