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The Parents Trying to Pass Down a Language They Hardly Speak - The Atlantic

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Losing your family’s language can feel like an inevitable side effect of immigration—but it’s one I want to prevent.

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic , Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here. M y mother used to tell a certain story at family parties when trying to explain why my sisters and I didn’t really speak Cantonese, my parents’ primary language. It’s probably a familiar narrative, especially to kids of immigrants in America. Still, it stung every time I heard it. When my oldest sister, Steph, was in her suburban-Connecticut kindergarten, she returned home one afternoon embarrassed and upset, and i

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