Today I got to witness history in the making for my family. I really dont realise how much history that me and my other siblings are making. My parents became u.s. citizens today. I was born in chicago and raised there. But to think about it. My brothers and i are the first in my whole family to be born in the states.
Im going to be the first one to graduate from college and get married out of my siblings and 67 first cousins alone on my mothers side. My family is very close to its roots and morals, but to see my parents become u.s. citizens today made me grasp a hold of reality and say wow. Im really proud of my parents.
My father who has a 3rd grade education has his own business and actually took the time to become a u.s. citizen. He also asked me for help to learn how to read and write which i did help him and now he can do more then anything. My mother who stood behind my father for the 25 years and support him and take care of us. I dont know about you guys but im damn proud of my parents they studied and learned everything they needed toknow and now finally after 20 years of living in the u.s. they are u.s. citizens.
So here is another new chapter in my family life. Wow just to think some 70 years from now my great grand kids are going to be asking where did grandma come from and great grandma and grandpa. Jeez kinda makes me feel good about who i am.
Pretty amazing, huh? My parents were naturalized when I was 10. Now thanks to Bushco, they suffer from profiling up the ying-yang almost 30 years later.
Chicago? How long were you here?
My barber is Assyrian and he was commenting today on how his mom has 7 brothers and sisters and how she had 9 kids! Man, talk about fulfilling the stereotype (ya know, the Arab family with the club wagon and 10 kids). I thought my mom had a big family with 9 siblings.
BTW, the barber was playing Wael Kfaouri today in the shop - how weird is that? [img]smile.gif[/img] But he really liked his VOICE. LOL.
I have been in arkansas since sept of 2000. Still a huge culture shock but im getting used to it.
My grandmother (on my moms side) had 12 kids 9 girls and 3 boys.
Then my grandmother(on my fathers side) had 6 kids
So you can see how my family is soo huge. My cousins though on my fathers side are all older. But on my mothers side i am the oldest grand daughter and my brothers are the oldest grandsons.
If anyone has seen my big fat greek wedding. That is my family
Its the same way in my family - 45 first cousins. On my dad's side, I am one of the youngest, since he was the youngest of 6 children. On my mom's side, I am one of the oldest since she was the second oldest of 10 kids.
However, I only have 2 cousins here in North America. And I'm an only child. Go figure.
its just soo funny how being that im the first generation in the states and im so americanized at the same time americans see me soo different. its like 2 worlds all in one. To behonest i am happy who i am and i love the way i can g home and talk arabic with my parents and yet go inpublic and speak english or visa versa i just feel so versitial.
And the only way we can manage to get our whole family together at one time is at weddings so God willing i wonder what its going to be like when i get "hitched" lol
Will i play any american music? or all arabic? do i do the traditional belly dancers and live band? or just get a dj? ah so americanized but i think imma keep it as '' close'' as i can too my roots
Not as much of an issue for me since my wife, like me, was raised here (well, I was born here, but she came here when she was 2). So we're all-american, but connected with our heritage. But we speak English to ourselves and to our parents, so a large part of our culture is lost. We try to convince our parents to speak to our kids in their language, to no avail. Seems to be English all around.
You're marrying a guy from 'there' right? So how can you not keep close to your roots? When's the date?
FWIW, I say go with the Arabic music... awesome to dance to.
lol i guess its going to be chaos but fun. i dont have any sisters to help me out with this. and i cant really pic some of my cousins to help then its like WHAT BOUT ME? or look whos daughter she picked ouf lol so imma go nuts [img]smile.gif[/img] ) or just not care and have fun
It's really hard to keep kids speaking another language growing up here. They think it's so uncool.
When we get around to having kids the wife & I are planning to use English outside the house...not sure how thats gonna work though.
Chera, K - have you heard of DJ Cheb i Sabbah? Not Arab music but he mixes up the Banghra with Persian and Arab sounds. That'd be good wedding tunage.
Nothing beats live though.
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Working "hard," or the perception of working hard, doesn't really mean anything. Sweating, vomiting, and breathing hard could be a good workout or a tropical disease kicking in.-Dan John
sorry havent heard of him. But im having a live singer. Bashar and layla. They are from chicago, Joseph bashar is my 3rd cousin i believe. Blah with the 4 th i can barely keep up anymore. Bu if anyone is interested there will be an arabic Hefle (dance party) comming real soon here in arkansas. Shaban will be singing!!!!! HE IS FREAKIN AWESOME!! yup yup!
Hi Peter, we speak Japanese in the house (and out) about half the time. Really works well when your talking about the annoying guy at the next table. Course being in Japan you do the opposite right? All part of the fun.
Takamatsu eh? Nice area. Do you an eigo sensei there?
We moved from Chiba back to the US a year or so back. Kinda miss the fresh powder over in Niigata though...
__________________
Working "hard," or the perception of working hard, doesn't really mean anything. Sweating, vomiting, and breathing hard could be a good workout or a tropical disease kicking in.-Dan John
We have 2 boys (6 and almost 2). We are primarily doing one parent one language which seems to be a popular approach (there is very little research on this, and most info is anecdotal). However, it was the approach that we were most compfortabole with. My wife (Japanese) does also use English with them since being a sarari-man, I am home quite late on weekdays.
In the traditional family, you have an advantage in your setup if you use the one parent one lanbguage approach, given that your wife probably would have more contact time. Her - Japanese: you English.
The big advantage that we have here is that English is High Status (even among kids) and there is not the negative stigma to using a foreign language that seems to exist in the US (or at least in my experience in the US). My oldest is doing well, but there is a vocab gap between Japanese and English (we also supplement with Skyperfect- all TV is English at home and he now does prefer to watch in English: I feel at odds here because I hate TV but it has become somewhat of an ally.)
I took him back to Canada last summer and put him in DAY camp (he was 5 at the time) and there was a huge jump in Vocab- So I will try and get him more exposure like that. I new it was a sucess when we were trading insults and he said,"You eat armadillo snot!"
Anyway, a work in progress.
Here is a link for The Bilingual Family (Cambridge Uni Press)
It is a good starting point if you haven't looked into bilingual approaches without getting too pedantic.
Takamatsu is a great place place to live. It is big enough to have every thing (though I still have to use FBC and COSTCO) but small enough (can afford to park a car).
I work full time for Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding (in house esp program, write operation manuals, tech reports, etc) and PT at Kagawa National Uni.
How long were in Chiba for? What did you do? or is that a stupid question?
What do you do now?
Cheers
peter
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Peter
After all, diamonds are a girl's best friend…
2 of my closest friends in Japan, one a Brit, another American each have two kids as well (married with Japanese women) and are taking a similar approach. One of them has his kids in an international school in Tokyo, and each summer they go to some sort of camp in either the US or UK.
I agree it's tough to get children comfortable with 2 languages at home, especially in the US. I know some Japanese-American kids who's parents speak to them in Japanese but the kids always answer in English. Obviously they understand well enough but seldom actually speak Jpn.
Anyway, I lived in Chiba but sardine-canned it into Tokyo everyday for a couple of years for my job at a record label. Did the English school thing about 10 years back, but had enough of that fairly quickly.
Speaking of Costco, I lived within biking distance from the one in Makuhari, which also has a real nice Gold's gym on the bay. Much better than metropolitan Tokyo but the commute was hell.
Good choice in Takamatsu! Those University gigs are nice man. I know a few who have 'em and are very well taken care of.
__________________
Working "hard," or the perception of working hard, doesn't really mean anything. Sweating, vomiting, and breathing hard could be a good workout or a tropical disease kicking in.-Dan John
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Congratulations, Chera. My mom was naturalized, like Kaiser's, when I was 10. Cool thing--it was America's Bicentennial year, so her certificate of US citizenship has the offical logo of America's Bicetennial.
Speaking of stereotypes, my mom is a RC from Ireland--9 brothers and sisters....
We have 2 boys (6 and almost 2). We are primarily doing one parent one language which seems to be a popular approach (there is very little research on this, and most info is anecdotal). However, it was the approach that we were most compfortabole with. My wife (Japanese) does also use English with them since being a sarari-man, I am home quite late on weekdays.
In the traditional family, you have an advantage in your setup if you use the one parent one lanbguage approach, given that your wife probably would have more contact time. Her - Japanese: you English.
The big advantage that we have here is that English is High Status (even among kids) and there is not the negative stigma to using a foreign language that seems to exist in the US (or at least in my experience in the US). My oldest is doing well, but there is a vocab gap between Japanese and English (we also supplement with Skyperfect- all TV is English at home and he now does prefer to watch in English: I feel at odds here because I hate TV but it has become somewhat of an ally.)
I took him back to Canada last summer and put him in DAY camp (he was 5 at the time) and there was a huge jump in Vocab- So I will try and get him more exposure like that. I new it was a sucess when we were trading insults and he said,"You eat armadillo snot!"
Anyway, a work in progress.
Here is a link for The Bilingual Family (Cambridge Uni Press)
It is a good starting point if you haven't looked into bilingual approaches without getting too pedantic.
Takamatsu is a great place place to live. It is big enough to have every thing (though I still have to use FBC and COSTCO) but small enough (can afford to park a car).
I work full time for Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding (in house esp program, write operation manuals, tech reports, etc) and PT at Kagawa National Uni.
How long were in Chiba for? What did you do? or is that a stupid question?
What do you do now?
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