"The Limits of My Language are the Limits of my World"- Ludwig Wittgenstein
In his interview, Kelvin talks about his experience being bilingual at home. Both of his parents are from the Dominican Republic and migrated to America. Kelvin mentions that his first language was spanish and tells the story of how he learned English, his second language, on the streets in his neighborhood. Kelvin talks about how he felt learning english forced him to forget parts of his spanish and his spanish culture at home. While he recognizes that his learning English was essential to his academic success, he also believes it hindered his learning spanish and hindered some of the relationships he has with family members. Kelvin's parents do not speak any English so he uses Spanish with them at home. Unlike Max, Kelvin believes that it was tough to learn another language without leaving his second language behind. He, like Shivanii did at first, felt that he had to choose between the language of his parents or the language of everyone else around him.
In the book The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contactthe authors, Yip and Matthews, write about their opinions of children growing up in bilingual and multilingual homes and how it affects a child's development. According to the authors, in their opinions and experiences, they believe that being fluent in many languages actually assists a child and pushes their learning capabilities. They believe that children learn how to think in a more complex manner when they can communicate across multiple languages. Kelvin would definitely disagree with this statement, seeing as he stated that he still gets confused between the two languages he speaks. He struggles to speak to his parents with confidence because he does not fully speak spanish. He even claims that sometimes he struggles to respond at all with certain family members. Kelvin shares similar opinions to those that Shivanii experienced when her father first expected her to respond in Sindhi. Seeing as she did not know the language with confidence, similar to how Kelvin did not fully speak Spanish, Shivanii also struggled to respond to her father and it made her nervous.
In the book One Child, Many World: Early Learning in Multicultural Communities the authors analyze case studies to understand how children learn language in their youth. The authors claim that the environment in which the child grows up in makes a big difference as to how the child will learn and understand language. The authors also claim that the education system in America make it harder for bilingual children to hold onto their native culture. Schools, when teaching english to young children, force children to forget their native cultures and languages in order so that the child has the strongest grasp of english as possible, to ensure success in their future. Through his experience of learning English, Kelvin would definitely agree with the authors. In his interview, he mentions how in learning English, he had to choose between English and Spanish and he ultimately could not develop his spanish speaking capabilities. He had to make a choice between what language he needed to know more and in deciding that it was English, he gave up some of his Spanish speaking capabilities. Furthermore, in his decision making, he also sacrificed some some strength in his familial relationships He and his parents do not always communicate as efficiently as possible because he uses the Spanish that he knows and they do not meet him in the middle and use any English. Also, he and his mom struggled a little bit because she thinks that Kelvin has become in some ways too "americanized".
Yip Virginia, and Stephen Matthews. The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print. Gregory, Eve. One Child, Many Worlds: Early Learning in Multicultural Communities. New York: Teacher's College, 1997. Print.