The life of a Mixed child

 By ALI RIVERA

As the daughter of an immigrant, who had to leave her home as a child because of the war that had sprung up in the middle of her home, and to receive a better life, You must take pride in what you are and your ancestors. Growing up in a household where you are the only mixed child, you are expected and held at a higher standard to know your native language but to also know English. But growing up in America where everyone speaks English and only English you start to lose the ability to speak your native language. 

My name is Ali-Natalee Rivera, I am the daughter of Chreb Ses, an immigrant who escaped from her home country with her parents and siblings to receive a better life. I am a mixed child, Cambodian and Puerto Rican. Both of my parents came from struggles but have given me and my siblings the best life I could ever ask for. They have sacrificed everything for my siblings and me. In my household, we weren’t expected to know Spanish but we were highly expected to know Khmer. I understood and knew how to speak the language although it was broken. Everyone underestimates me and believes I do not know Khmer based on my appearance until I start speaking it or start responding to them. I am a very tall light-skinned girl with curly hair but no one seems to believe I am Khmer until they see my mom. 

Living in a Cambodian household, you learn the basics of speaking Khmer. You learn how to say basic household necessities such as plate ចាន, bed គ្រែ, and soap សាប៊ូ. You’d also learn different foods like rice porridge បបរ, fish ត្រី, and chicken សាច់មាន់. You would learn how to say grandma យាយ and grandpa តា. You would refer to your mom as មាក់ and your dad as ប៉ា.

In my Eighth-grade year of middle school, my best friend and I decided we would take Khmer together since we already knew the language. We thought, “It couldn’t possibly be that hard if we already know the language.” On the first day of freshman year, I found out we would be learning to read and write which I did not know how to do it at all. At first, I struggled with it all, speaking, writing, and remembering the consonants and vowels. It takes time and repetition to remember these things. 33 consonants and 26 vowels to remember.  If you don’t remember these, you will not do good at all. My teacher was very nice and would help a lot of us that needed help. My classmates would take advantage of his friendliness to bring him off topics to not learn more. To keep taking Khmer, you must, I emphasize MUST, pay attention to your first year. You might think you know the way to say words you know, but fifty percent of the time it's wrong or has a double meaning. I remember this one time, there was a guy who came into my class and asked my teacher who I was and why a Spanish girl was in his class in Khmer. I understood him. My teacher told him I was a very good student and learned very well. The man started speaking to me but I did not want to speak because I was very shy. Luckily, A teacher who was very close to my family spoke up for me telling the man I was Khmer and that I understood him and could speak broken Khmer.  

Sophomore year, my teacher was someone with who my family was very close with so I was very determined to do good in this class. I struggled at the beginning of this class even though I knew what I was doing. I had forgotten everything I had learned the year before because I didn’t use or review anything over the summer. My class also struggled a lot because there were lots of kids that passed Khmer 1 but didn’t know any of the consonants or vowels. Therefore, my class spent at least half of the year relearning everything we learned in Khmer 1 when we should’ve been learning new things. Due to Covid-19, My sophomore year was cut short. Since a deadly pandemic was new, the school didn’t have a plan for us to continue to learn. Out of 7 classes, only about 4 assigned work for the rest of the year. Khmer wasn’t one of them. We were assigned videos to watch but it was still focusing on things we learned during Khmer 1 because my classmates did not know much.  Therefore, none of us learned more Khmer. At this level, Khmer 2, We were supposed to be learning sub-consonants so that we could start reading and writing paragraphs at Khmer 3. 

Coming into junior year, Just still knowing the basics when my teacher started asking us questions on if we knew sub-consonants we all were very, very confused. My teacher spoke pure Khmer and was a very scary man. I almost cried because I have heard he was a hard teacher and I barely knew anything from the years before. As the year went on, I realize he was an amazing teacher and always helped me when I needed help. I started to gain the confidence I needed to embrace my language.  I think this year has been the best in Khmer for me. I am learning so much although I struggled at times, my grades are great in this class. I am reading and creating sentences and making questions. At the beginning of the year, I wanted to cry because it was very difficult for me. My English accent kept developing and I kept losing my ability to speak Khmer even though I spoke it to my grandparents but it was very broken. This class has helped me gained back the ability to speak Khmer fluently and gave me the ability to read and write in Khmer. Even though I still struggle with remembering all the consonants, I am learning and exceedingly very well in this class. I hope to continue to learn more and more new things as the year goes on. 

Learning a second language may be hard and you will face multiple obstacles before you successfully learn it all, It is truly a blessing to learn my beautiful native language. Having a second language not only allows you to get job offers, but It also allows you to say to people I speak two languages. Not a lot of Cambodian adults or kids know their native language, so to able to not just speak it but to be able to write and read the language, makes me so happy. In my situation, it makes me so happy that I can prove to the people that have underestimated me based on my looks and let them know I am Khmer. Over the summer, I went to go play volleyball at Pailin park and this old man was talking about me and he called me, “បារាំង”, thinking that I didn’t understand what he said. For those that do not understand, he called me French intending that I am white when in reality I speak the same language he does. This summer, I am proudly going up to the man and telling him in Khmer that I am not white and that I understood everything he said about me. 

         Khmer is a language that isn’t recognized or spoken very often especially by the new generations. If we don't continue to learn and speak or spread our native language, it can soon die out. Although it can be very stressful to learn a new language, the outcome is outstanding and will leave you feeling very proud of yourself. Not only will you be proud of yourself, but your parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles will also be so very proud of you too. That feeling of everyone being proud of you is beyond the best feeling ever.

This is what I experience every time I go into a Khmer restaurant, store, and household. As a mixed child, in the United States of American, I am held to a standard of just being American and that I am not Cambodian. But with everything, I have learned in the past 3 years, I can proudly break the stigma of stereotypes held upon me based on my appearance. I am proud to be the daughter of a Cambodian immigrant. If I can defeat the standards and stereotypes that society had put up for me, and pass 3 years of Khmer with high 90’s, so can you.