March 12, 2017 - 14:53
I recently found this poem by Gustavo Pérez Firmat (reading Junot Diaz's Drown), which I thought was an eloquent expression of what some multilingual individuals may experience; it is definitely what I have experienced as a primarily Russian speaker in my high school in DC.
"The fact that I
am writing to you
in English
already falsifies what I
wanted to tell you.
My subject:
how to explain to you that I
don't belong to English
though I belong nowhere else"
~Gustavo Pérez Firmat
Comments
thank you!
Submitted by jccohen on March 17, 2017 - 18:59 Permalink
Thanks for sharing this - such a brief, powerful expression of language and belonging!