Barack Obama

And just like that, my faith in America is restored. Like one large collective breath, our heavy burdens fall and we breathe a sigh of weary relief. Cynicism replaced by inspiration. Amen.

Had someone asked me a few years ago (heck, if someone had asked me a month ago) whether I thought Barack Obama would be elected president of the United States, I would have only been able to say, "Gosh, I hope so, I really hope so." My fear was that to even dream of something so satisfying and inspiring would bring nothing but disappointment. I did not think this country was able to set aside petty differences and prejudices to rise to this momentous occasion.

But on the evening of November 4th, as my husband and children and I sat in hopeful anticipation, jumping up and down with joy, crying tears of gratitude and sitting in silent reverence, our small world changed wholly and completely. And when I awoke early on November 5th and headed to work as I always do on Wednesdays, the world looked just that much more vibrant, that much more hopeful, the people just that much more whole.

It takes courage to open ourselves up to the prospect of hope, sealed ever so tightly in Pandora's Box. But when we ask ourselves what is most important in life, it always comes down to the intangibles, those things which are ultimately impossible to wrap with words. It comes down to a sense of meaning and inner satisfaction; knowing that no matter what in the end all is (or will be) well in the world and we are here to be a meaningful part of it.

We may not change this world of ours but when we have the opportunity to witness someone who can and does and will, the whole of humanity is buoyed by that presence, that hope, that love. It takes a person like Barack Obama to remind us that life is about more than just movements and rituals. It is about having faith in our collective consciousness to compel us to do good, to show kindness, to cherish hope and to protect innocence.

May these next four years point us the way back to our lost American soul.

California Dreaming

I grew up in the foothills of Northern California and have always had mixed feelings about the place. It is a small town and I grew up in a small house on 2 acres surrounded by oaks, manzanita, deer and silence. It had a way of making me feel claustrophobic at times.

We lived three miles out of town on a dirt road, surrounded by hundreds of crickets who'd chirp all night long. (I only noticed when city folk would mention how loud they were). We could walk all night if we wanted to, just by the light of a full moon and we spent our summers plunging into the satisfying waters of the Yuba River.

Yet, I often found myself dreaming of the long, flat, wide, straight streets of cities - the seemingly straightforward, uncomplicated, matter-of-fact, predetermined benefits of man-made environments. In my hometown, trees and mountains which at times gave me a sense of protection and warmth, at other times made me feel trapped and isolated. The natural, unkempt surroundings of the forest both filled my heart with delight and caused me frustration.

I am here again in my childhood home with my husband and children. We are visiting my mother and brother who still live here. As with each visit, I sit in the same rooms and walk along the same paths as I did as a child. I notice that the trees have grown and that many things have changed.

Yet, what surprises me the most is not the way things are different from when I was a child. What surprises me is the way in which my own childhood memories are slowly being reshaped through the eyes of my own children. The way I remember my days as a child slowly begins to interweave itself with the daily romps and giggles of my children. It is as if I am seeing my world from a brand new vantage point.

Isn't that me sitting in the sandbox under the swaying oak trees letting sand flow through my outstretched palms? Am I not the one collecting moss and branches to create miniature worlds of my own making?

I sit on the back deck, breathe in the dry, familiar air and watch my children dart back and forth across the front yard. I find myself reliving my past through their laughter and overwhelming joy. Magically I slowly forget those things which aggravated me as a child and instead realize that I am savoring the bits which brought me satisfaction and happiness. I know there are downsides to growing up out here in the countryside, yet I easily push them aside as I witness the utter joy on my children's faces as they dedicate themselves to nothing but pure, unadulterated play from morning until night.

Our world seems so simple here. We step back just far enough to see things with a clarity that I fail to grasp when at home (where we rarely take the breaks we so desperately need to let our soul dangle). At home there is always a long list of "duties" which ultimately encapsulates me even more than the tall oaks and wide mountains ever did (and, ironically, are traps of my own making).

Despite the solid sidewalks and expansive streets of our city, it is out here in the wilds of Northern California that I find myself able to breathe again. It is here that I let down my guard just long enough to realize that I haven't been longing for wide city streets at all. In fact, I have been in awe of how high the trees have grown and how tall the mountains seem to have become ever since we drove down that dirt road of my childhood .

L'amour à la (AOL) française

As many of you know, the "technology company" which I often referred to as my place of employment was none other than the glorious America Online (AOL). Our group was purchased by another technology company in August, so I no longer work for AOL. I have spent close to 10 years working for AOL, helping to create and test the many language databases which are developed for the T9 product (which many of you will find in your cell phones for text messaging!) . In fact, when I met with Tommi earlier in the year, he jokingly said that he wished we'd develop our T9 software to support bilingual entry for cell phones, so that he could message in both Finnish and English at the same time. I was delighted to inform him that we DO have a bilingual program in place. It is just a matter of the OEMs putting it on their phones. :-)

After a recent round of layoffs (2,000 people worldwide), the AOL France team decided to go out with style (we would expect no less from the French!). Check out this fabulous video from the AOL France team (lip-synched to French Eurovision 2007 song from the band Les Fatal Picards). And yes, if you think you are hearing a bunch of code-switching between French and English, you are right! This is a delightful example of fun, fun, fun code-switching! I wish we'd have thought to have done something as wild and crazy when AOL sold off our group to another company!

The password for the video is: aollover .

L'amour a la francaise from pyc on Vimeo.

Monolingualism is a Curable Disease

Thank you Rubén Rumbaut for using this quote in an email correspondence: "Monolingualism is a curable disease."

When I first heard this quote a few years ago, I felt that the word disease was a little too strong. Disease sounds so deadly! Like an epidemic. But isn't that what monolingualism is in places like the United States? As we have also heard (and which Rumbaut reminded me): "America is a language graveyard."

Think about what that means! America is a place where languages go to die! They perish, bit by bit until they no longer exist. The sad part about that is that these languages are usurped by another language: English.

Being that America is such a land of immigration, this seems to strange to me. And, as Rumbaut has pointed out, immigration is what keeps languages alive and flourishing in this country. A generation or two later and languages will most likely have all but died out. Immigration across borders keeps the language influx thriving.

The saddest part about this whole thing is that America has so much potential. I LOVE America. I love the cowboy and cowgirl origins: the "can do" live style and powerful independence. The ability to feel that the stars can be reached if only we give enough heart to the effort. The hippy mentality of getting in touch with the earth and treating humanity with the respect it deserves. A multitude of elements blend and collide, mesh and bounce off one another. It is a beautiful sight to witness.

Just today, while shopping for clothes, I stood in the changing room and listened to two women discussing their clothing choices in German while in the stall next to them a woman spoke on her cell phone in Italian! And later I witness two Indian women contemplating their clothing in their native language. I passed an African woman pushing her child in a stroller, donning her native clothing and speaking to her child in her language. This is all in a matter of an hour and in the middle of a large Seattle downtown department store!

But this country seems to also attract those who wish to create an artificial consistency out of the flourishing cultural and linguistic mosaic that exists here. A kind of fear seems to pervade a certain corner of our citizenry and they lash out trying to create a circle of comfort around themselves by attacking others.

As Rumbaut has pointed out - our languages are in jeopardy. There is no threat to the English language and the American culture. If anything, our children will probably not even pass on our languages if they differ from the community language around us.

So, I say to the rest of the United States, let go of your worries and embrace our country as it is and enjoy the beauty of it all. We ARE multilingual. We ARE multicultural. That is simply the reality of our land. Within these borders are languages and cultures mixing and blending with unfathomable creativity and beauty. And in the end, we will all still be Americans. Never fear! We will still have the "can do" attitude, the hippy mentality, the intertwined depth of what it means to be an American. So before we destroy that which makes us human and whole and American, let's embrace it and savor it.

Library Junkie

I'm a full-on, complete, no-holds-barred library junkie! Just the smell of the place makes me swoon!

We have a shelf full of library books at home. Most are about homeschooling, a bunch are ones the kids picked out, some are learning to read books (in English, of course) and a few are novels that I've wanted to read. Then we have the whole row of DVDs: the entire first and second seasons of Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives, countless kids educational DVDs (and a few oddities like Rubadubbers' "High Noon in the Bathroom" where animated bath toys have a show-down - very educational indeed), a few political DVDs which my husband picked up and finally French and Spanish movies with subtitles - my favorites!

I think we have over 80 items checked out right now and another 50 on hold.

Today I went into the library to pick up two more books and I felt a little giddy the whole time - like when I was a kid and my birthday or Christmas had arrived and there were gifts with my name on them.

We have so many libraries in Seattle that we can choose the books we want online, then ask that they be delivered to the library closest to us. Fabulous! Who needs Amazon when we can order free books from the library, have them delivered and just pick them up on the way to get the kids from daycare.

Hallelujah - I love the library!

Oh - and my kids do too. :-)

Because Language Really Does Matter!

“I wanted to fit in so badly,” she said. “I figured if I practiced English, if I spoke English well, I’d be an American, like the other kids in my school.”

This is a quote from 20 year old Fidele Harfouche, a native-born Lebanese who has been living in the U.S. since she was 6. She is one of many voices sharing their experiences in a May 7th article in the New York Times about how the younger generation in the United States is appreciating and embracing their families' languages more than ever!

This is absolutely fabulous to hear! And the fact that the NY Times is reporting on it is even more exciting! This means that the word is spreading (pun intended).

But why are they reporting on it? Because the University of California, Los Angeles, with financing from the United States Education Department, "is conducting the first national count of college programs geared toward heritage students, most of whom grew up speaking a language other than English at home."

The research was sparked by the fact that while enrollment in certain foreign language courses was dropping over the past decades, enrollment in other language courses has exploded during the same period. The correlation appears to be linked, at least in part, with students who want to "relearn" the language of their youth, their "heritage languages."

There is something to be said about the role languages play in our deepest psyches and emotional associations. As Mr. Yang, who is ethnic Chinese and grew up in Mongolia where he learned a bit of kindergarten Chinese before coming to the U.S.:

“This is going to sound nationalistic, but as I grew older, I realized that as a Chinese man, I needed to learn Chinese,” Mr. Yang said. “I guess this is about reconnecting with a big part of who I am that I had neglected for a long time.”

We should remember this when we hear our children complaining about us speaking our languages with them. They may be annoyed right now, and perhaps we will have to learn how to work with our children to find the right balance of when and where to use which languages, but in the end we should remember that a time will most likely come in their lives when they will look back and thank us for being consistent in our language choices.

There may even come a time when they turn to a heritage language course and are delighted that they can pick up the language again so quickly, and that they find that they still have an emotional connection with their family language. As Guadalupe Valdés, a professor of education and Spanish at Stanford University, said:

"in most cases, it takes heritage speakers just a few semesters to reach a level of sophistication that beginners take years to achieve."

So when you feel that you are giving up hope that your children will ever appreciate your language, and when you start to feel that you are getting into the rut of teaching them your language rather than simply "being" your language and culture with them, think of these words from Ms. Harfouche after she started her language course in Arabic, the language of her childhool and her family's native language:

“This was very fulfilling... It opened a whole new world for me. The beauty of my culture, of my Arabic culture, is in the writing, in the poetry, and knowing that I can rely on myself to read it and understand is really amazing.”

This, families around the world, is what it is really all about, isn't it?

Peace Takes Courage

What is 16 year old home schooled Ava Lowery doing in Alabama these days? Ava is creating some of the most powerful videos against the Iraq war that I have seen in a while! She combines music, images and text and leaves us speechless. As the name of her site says, Peace Takes Courage! Let's hope that all of us can do our part in standing up for peace. As multilinguals and multiculturals, we know how absolutely important and essential this is!

Check out Ava's site here: www.peacetakescourage.com.

And before you go... make sure to listen to this song from musician and social/political activist Tom Morello. The words and tune in this song remind us of the urgency that is necessary to halt the rampages of inequality, racism, and war in our world!

Americans Are...

Your words were meant for someone else.
I know.
But they hurt just the same.

"I don't mean you," you say.
But sweeping generalizations cannot be minimized
by your personal wishes.

If you do not condemn me,
then you still condemn my children,
my mother,
my brother,
my aunts and uncles and
my still unconceived grandchildren.
You condemn my reality as I know it,
the circumscribed lines which delineate my existence.

"But it doesn't mean anything,
it's just a stereotype,
it's what people say," you indicate.
In my eyes, you have merged into the masses,
and I begin to grieve my loss
of what I had hoped would become a friendship.

We all search for uniformity,
to place people and events and things into boxes,
with little labels attached.

I thought you understood that humanity is complex,
that Americans are not all the same,
that a political system does not reflect
the depths of each individual's soul.

Not all Americans were raised with silver spoons in their mouths.
Some of us remember winter months
huddled before the fireplace with mother and brother
because we couldn't afford the cost of heat.
Kind friends having donated wood.

Not all of us had the privilege of free time while
attending high school and college.
We worked low-paying jobs during our off hours
to help ensure our family could buy food and pay the bills.

Not all of us know what it is like to dine in fancy restaurants.
But we do know what it is like to stand in line for food
at the food bank,
and to feel the embarrassment of
paying for groceries with food stamps.

We worked hard to earn the right to dream,
to create,
to learn,
to imagine,
to delight in our successes.

So when you think you are being funny,
are making a well-accepted statement,
are saying something that is deserved,
instead you are condemning me.
You are encapsulating my existence
into your limited ability for compassion,
for humility,
for complexity.

Despite all of this,
I do understand you.
And I wish you well.

I hope someday you will be able to broaden your mind,
your heart,
your soul,
to avoid sweeping generalizations about other cultures.
Despite what you tell yourself,
despite your justification for the lack of carefully chosen words,
despite the fact that you attack me for not being more understanding,
for agreeing,
for simply accepting,
despite all of this,
I am still American.