Podcast

Laj Kulabong, an Asian-American student, talks about his experience with language diversity. He grew up in separate households where one spoke English and the other spoke Laotian. He struggled to understand his Laotian-speaking grandmother and had to rely on his dad or aunt for translation. Laj also faced challenges learning Chinese and Laotian simultaneously, causing confusion between the two languages. Over time, his grandmother improved her English, and Laj tries to pick up some Laotian. He feels pressure to learn his family's language to pass on the culture. Laj's father, Channy Koolvong, shares that he grew up learning both languages simultaneously and saw no advantage or disadvantage. They end the podcast by thanking each other for sharing their experiences. I am Laj Kulabong, an Asian-American student who has experienced the front and back end of the translucent border between languages. Today I'll be talking about my relationship with language diversity as a young adult. I'll be discussing this with a special guest towards the end with a conversation regarding obstacles that we're here to climb over. Growing up in separate households where one speaks English and the other speaks primary Laos was difficult growing up. To this day, I struggle to understand my grandma who grew up in Laos for the first half of her life. As my grandma, she had many things to teach and learn from. The issue that lies ahead of that was a language barrier. As I can understand partial phrases, I can never understand the big picture. This is where I'd have to ask my dad or aunt what grandma was trying to say or else I wouldn't have understood. She's gotten a lot better with her English over the years, but she'll always have her accent which I can't always understand. This is seen often growing up in a household where I'm the only one who doesn't know I've learned from this experience that as an Asian American citizen, that's hard to achieve fluent multilingualism. In my early years of learning, I took Chinese up until my sophomore year in high school. Chinese and Laos are different but not in the extreme manner. Both languages pronounce certain words and phrases similar with the same meaning. But trying to learn Chinese at school as well as Laos at home, I noticed I was overlapping the two and struggling to make sentences regarding one or the other. As a student, I needed to focus on Chinese which prevented me from learning my family's language. This caused me to know more Chinese than Laos which made it even harder than before to understand my grandma. To overcome this barrier, my grandma's thrived and improved her English where I try to pick up on some Laos here and there. With these small steps on both ends, it was easier to understand one another and grow from our communication skills. My whole life I've been pressured by the family into learning the language as they want me to be able to pass our culture along to the next generation. At some point in my life, I would like to be able to do these things. Whereas my identity will always remain the same, sometimes it can be difficult to call myself Laotian due to the lack of knowledge. But I can be proud of my heritage and upbringing as an Asian-American citizen and thrive to achieve more within my culture's language. Now I'll be bringing on a special guest, my father, Channy Koolvong, to answer a question. As my first question, I'll ask, as an American citizen who speaks primarily Laos, what obstacles regarding language did you have to experience? Actually, I came here when I was six months old, so I didn't know any different from learning one language from another. I kind of had to grow up learning both languages at the same time. So whether it's at home learning Laotian with my parents or my family or, you know, learning English at school or growing up with the kids in the neighborhood, picking it up slowly and just, you know, just doing the sponge and taking it all away. So I didn't see any advantage or disadvantage because I just thought that that's the way how it was for me growing up. Well, those are some really good pieces there that you've had to incorporate into this and I really appreciate you sharing. Thank you for joining me today, Dad, on my podcast. Really appreciate it. All right.