This was our first writing assignment in English 110!! It was our Language and Literacy Narrative!

Growing up I wouldn’t say literacy had an affect on me at all, I’ve always enjoyed writing, it wasn’t really a passion, but it was something that I had fun doing once I got the ball rolling. Writing was always an academic activity for me rather than it being a hobby or a way to kill time. On the other hand, language has a huge affect on my life, from my youth up until now.

My parents got separated when I was 5 years old, my mother is a white woman who speaks fluent English, and my dad is an Arab man who speaks fluent Arabic and pretty good English. My stepmother, Laila, who is Moroccan, speaks fluent Arabic and broken English, and she’s been married to my father for about 11 years (I think). I don’t have the closest relationship with either of them and I feel that we have a big barrier between us. My father and stepmother only speak Arabic when they’re home so it’s hard for me to be part of any conversation, I don’t speak Arabic all that well, so I often just stay in my room. My father and I don’t really butt heads, but we do have different views and it’s hard because it feels like we’re on two different planes and our ideas don’t level with each other. My relationship with my mother is much closer, we are basically the same person, we have the same sense of humor, and we often have long dialogues with each other and I’m very open with her. However, with my dad and stepmom it doesn’t feel that way at all, we aren’t close, and I can’t joke or talk to them the same way. I wish that we could talk about my girlfriend and I, I wish that we could talk about my mental health and how not seeing eye to eye with him really stresses me out, and I wish that we could talk about how school is hard and exhausting without me feeling like I’m failing my father.

I think a big part of why my father’s and my relationship isn’t all that close is because of our language barrier at home, I’m left out of a lot of conversations and essentially, I feel like I’m missing out on our culture. I don’t listen to a lot of the music that my dad listens to or watch any of the shows and movies that he likes. I don’t understand a lot of things because I can’t speak the language and I can’t really share experiences or enjoy them when I don’t really know what is going on. It’s like being in a foreign country all day for 5 days a week and then you go back home on the weekend and have a blast for 2 days and then it’s back to confusion and silence. In other words, I’m at my father’s house throughout the week, Monday through Friday. On the weekend I spend my time at my mother’s house, my mother and I sleep in the same room so inherently we are a lot closer already. It’s not something that I prefer to do but it’s the situation we’re in and I have no problem with it because it brings us closer in a sense. My weekends are filled with laughter and spending quality time with my mother watching movies together, cooking together, or doing homework together and enjoying each other’s presence in silence. When I go back to my father’s house there really isn’t much of that, I don’t see my father all that often because of schedule conflicts but when we do see each other it feels a lot quieter and more mundane.

September of 2020, my dad, stepmom, and I went on a vacation to Egypt for a month. Egypt is a gorgeous country, the beaches had beautiful soft white sand that almost feels like lava, oceans that were so blue and clear that they looked fake. When we went out to eat we were served intimidating amounts of food. Plates stacked high with fresh white rice and beautifully seasoned tender meat; salad bowls so colorful it looked like Picasso puked into it. Dinner was overwhelming, but it was my favorite part of the trip. We visited a lot of historic places like the first mosque built in Egypt, the pyramids, and my dad’s old house. All these wonderful things you probably would figure that I had the grandest time. Quite the opposite in fact. I felt so isolated the whole time, if the language barrier was bad at home, it certainly got worse now, a lot of the people I met, who were either family or family friends didn’t speak any English. I tried my best to speak to them, but it was hard because I barely speak any Arabic, so in a sense it felt like I was back home at my dad’s house in the US.

Recently, things have felt tense at my father’s house, my father and stepmother don’t like that I got a girlfriend, my father tried to have a conversation with me about the topic and it was probably one of the hardest conversations I had to sit through. It showed me how much an “old timer” mindset he has, and I think that’s where language comes into play and his background as well. My dad grew up in a strict Muslim household, so granted he’s going to feel a certain way about things, but he’s been in the US for a while now and I was expecting some sort of change. I would expect him to be accustomed to “American ways.” For example, I was expecting my father to be cool with me bringing my girlfriend over, especially since it wouldn’t be my first girlfriend to come over. I at least wanted him to understand that coming back from being at college for 3 months I would want to have people over. My father sat me down to have two conversations about my girlfriend, the first conversation was about how we are Muslim and shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing, “Omar, when I grew up this was never allowed, you can’t just sleep with a woman and have sex with her.” To me this was complete bullshit, my father was a player when he was younger and even during his marriage with my mother, so I felt that he was being hypocritical. He also told me to ask him first if I wanted to bring her over which I completely agree with, which I did for the next time that I brought her over. The next “talk” which after I brought her over again, got disrespectful. My father sat me down to talk about my girlfriend and I… he starts it off with saying that I can’t bring her over anymore because he and my stepmother got into a fight. He proceeded to tell me that “she will fuck somebody behind your back and leave you one day,” and eventually break my heart, I have never felt more disrespected but, I don’t blame him for saying what he said because once again we don’t speak the same language. I don’t think he knew how hurtful what he said was, what really got me upset is that my stepmother had a problem and instead of talking to me she tells my father. To me that exaggerated the language barrier in my mind, and it showed me why we aren’t close.

I’m afraid to talk to my father about a lot of things because I know he won’t understand, and it’ll just make things worse. I do wish my father and my relationship was closer but it’s just hard, especially now that I don’t see him all that often because I have school and he works. This problem has been around forever, so I’m a little doubtful that it’ll change soon. As for Laila, no matter how much I try to break the barrier it doesn’t really work, she doesn’t talk to me all that often so I don’t really care all that much.