The Role of Language in Immigrant Family

Language plays a very important role in many immigrant families.
Immigrant children learn English very fast while parents still use the language
they usually speak. Children pick up new things very fast. Children at
younger ages are easier to adapt using English as their primary language and
the American custom because "School is the launching pad that sends them
into a different world day after day, distancing them from their roots" (Arax
3).This causes a big generation and culture gaps as people, like Xuong Lam
who is the head of a close-knit family of Chinese refugees from Vietnam and
settled in the United Stated six years ago, at older ages cannot change
their cultural values; Lam says, "When you are old like me or my wife
and mother, America cannot change you. How many years do we have left to
learn about America? But the younger ones, they will change" (Arax 6). These
different speeds of assimilation sometimes creates generation gap can
be easily solved if families communicate well. However, communication
itself has already been a problem. …