Language plays a part in family dispute. As the first generation immigrants, parents are usually confined by their teachings in the language and cultural lessons of their mother country while the offspring are ready to make transition to their newly-adopted home. Problems often arise in most mundane circumstances such as calling the bank, buying clothes, and more. Chang Rae Lee narrates about a personal experience of encountering a bitter argument with his mother as he “was getting more and more impatient with the difficulty she encountered in doing everyday things”. Although a very trivial matter, the mother can’t make a phone call because of the language barrier. When the son was asked to make a phone call for his mother, the author felt that his mother’s life was “so small to him”, thus creating a disorder between the two. Language is a way to connect and even divide the family members.
Often when families immigrate to a foreign country, the roles of the parents and the offspring switch. Already accustomed to their home country’s culture and values, parents become unfamiliar with the new lifestyle and environment, thus losing responsibility of daily tasks and circumstances. On the other hand, children have the opportunity to adjust themselves to new perceptions and settings, granting them the responsibility to take care of trivial matters. Such reversal of roles that create dysfunctional unnatural circumstances causes the spark of family feud.
Wounded