My Experience with Heritage Language Loss in America

Nov. 29, 2011 • Yurimi Grigsby

During one visit home with my mother, she was watching the Weather Channel. “I always watch Weather Channel,” she said, “All day.” I asked her why and then said it again in my rudimentary Japanese, “Nande?” She smiled at my linguistic offering and replied, “Wakaranai.” I had to ask her what that meant. She said, “Mean ‘I do not know’.” Because I only knew one Japanese word for the phrase ‘I don’t know,’ I said, “I thought that was ‘wakarimasen’.” …