Personal Narrative: Lost In Translation

One of the most challenging things a person can experience is leaving everything you’ve ever known behind and starting completely over somewhere else. Eva does this in the Lost in Translation by moving from Poland all the way to Canada when she is just a teenager. When I was sixteen years old my family moved from Minnesota to Texas. This isn’t quite as drastic of a change as in Lost in Translation, but many of the things Eva experienced I can relate with even if I just crossed numerous state line borders. Eva says “My mother says I’m becoming “English.” This hurts me, because I know she means I’m becoming cold.” I’ve realized as I’ve lived in Texas for the last four years I’ve started to say stuff and do things I would have never done in Minnesota.
Where we live and the people we associate ourselves with greatly affect us whether we know it or not. When I was sixteen years old I moved from Minnesota to Texas after living in Minnesota for my entire life. The reason for the move to Texas was that my dad had a great job opportunity in Austin, Texas and we have family that we are very close to that lives in Texas. Everything seemed to line up perfectly, is what I though initially. After living in Texas for a few months, I was having a really hard time adjusting and it wasn’t from just missing my family and friends behind. I couldn’t figure out what was missing, but as time went on I figured out I missed all the little things that were unique to where I lived. Things were far from perfect in Minnesota and Texas probably has more opportunities for my family and myself, but there are times where I still miss Minnesota. This is very similar to Eva’s situation as their family would have better opportunities in Canada, but she still can’t quite get over Poland even with all the political corruption going on there. Moving can leave one lost and having this sense of nostalgia for your past. The first thing I noticed when I got to Texas was how different the language was even though both states speak the English language. Whenever I would talk to people for the first time, because of my accent I would get “are you from the north” and then a stereotypical Minnesota phrase like “you betcha”. Also my accent would make it seem like I am saying a completely different word than I was aiming for. I would say “bag” and people would mistake it for “beg”. However, not only my accent gave me problems when speaking to people. The first time I asked someone “what kind of pop do you have?” everyone got the biggest kick out of it. I meant soda, but people in Texas don’t use the term “pop”. This isn’t as drastic as in Lost in Translation with her having to learn a completely new language, but differences in languages can create a bigger social gap between people. In Minnesota most people are of Scandinavian descent and my family in particular are from Norway. At holidays my entire family would come over and we make lefse and krumkakes, which people in Texas have never even heard of. These are Norwegian food items and I’ve noticed that nobody down here has tried them. Now at holidays we rarely have lefse or krumkakes. This may be to the reason that my family is becoming more “Texan” and we now eat foods such as BBQ and Tex-Mex way more often than we did before. The sense of taste is a very strong one when it comes to emotions and remembering past experiences. Even with being in a different state I still get a little taste from home when I eat lefse or krumkakes. Texas doesn’t have as many Scandinavian people as Minnesota does, but they have far more Hispanic people. I have grown to appreciate this because I am getting a new sense of culture by trying different Mexican foods and have had opportunities that I didn’t have in Minnesota. One of these is opportunities is CELP at Southwestern University. CELP is a program where we go into Elementary schools in Georgetown, Texas and help the English-Second Language kids out with their homework. Learning Spanish wasn’t pushed on us in Minnesota like it is here, but I understand completely why it is. Knowing Spanish will open so many doors here, but in Minnesota it wasn’t as relevant. The town I lived in since I was born until age sixteen in Minnesota was a very small town.
Everyone’s house seemed to be very similar and car they would drive was relatively the same when it came to cost. Even if people were wealthy, they didn’t flaunt it and have these luxurious items. The town I live in Texas is also a small town, but there are so many differences than the small town in Minnesota. There are multi-million dollar homes in my new town and people drive luxurious sports cars around town. Not only are there extremely wealthy people, but there are also those that are quite poor. Class systems can change drastically from where you live and Eva saw this first hand when she moved from Poland and went to live with the Rosenberg’s. My experience moving to Texas from Minnesota was very similar to Eva’s in many ways. The change I experienced wasn’t close to as drastic as Eva’s was, but I still faced many of the same things. No matter the location and how great it seems to be, there is always a sense of longing for one’s past because it’s familiar. Also, the longer one lives in the new place the more they are going to start picking up that place’s ways. Eva’s mother said that she was becoming English and “cold.” So I guess that means that I’m slowly becoming Texan, whether I like it or
not.