Listen:

Shailja Patel's "Dreaming in Gujarati":

The children in my dreams
speak in Gujarati
turn their trusting faces to the sun
say to me
care for us nurture us
in my dreams I shudder and I run.

I am six
in a playground of white children
Darkie, sing us an Indian song!
Eight
in a roomful of elders
all mock my broken Gujarati
English girl!

Twelve, I tunnel into books
forge an armor of English words.
Eighteen, shaved head
combat boots -
shamed by masis
in white saris
neon judgments
singe my western head.
Mother tongue.
Matrubhasha
tongue of the mother
I murder in myself.

Through the years I watch Gujarati
swell the swaggering egos of men
mirror them over and over
at twice their natural size.
Through the years
I watch Gujarati dissolve
bones and teeth of women, break them
on anvils of duty and service, burn them
to skeletal ash.
Words that don't exist in Gujarati :
Self-expression.
Individual.
Lesbian.

English rises in my throat
rapier flashed at yuppie boys
who claim their people "civilized" mine.
Thunderbolt hurled
at cab drivers yelling
Dirty black bastard!
Force-field against teenage hoods
hissing
F****ing Paki bitch!
Their tongue - or mine?
Have I become the enemy?

Listen:
my father speaks Urdu
language of dancing peacocks
rosewater fountains
even its curses are beautiful.
He speaks Hindi
suave and melodic
earthy Punjabi
salty rich as saag paneer
coastal Kiswahili
laced with Arabic,
he speaks Gujarati
solid ancestral pride.
Five languages
five different worlds
yet English
shrinks
him
down
before white men
who think their flat cold spiky words
make the only reality.

Words that don't exist in English:
Najjar
Garba
Arati.

If we cannot name it
does it exist?
When we lose language
does culture die? What happens
to a tongue of milk-heavy
cows, earthen pots
jingling anklets, temple bells,
when its children
grow up in Silicon Valley
to become
programmers?

Then there's American:
Kin'uh get some service?
Dontcha have ice?
Not:
May I have please?
Ben, mane madhath karso?
Tafadhali nipe rafiki
Donnez-moi, s'il vous plait
Puedo tener.....
Hello, I said can I get some service?!
Like, where's the line for Ay-mericans
in this goddamn airport?
Words that atomized two hundred thousand Iraqis:
Didja see how we kicked some major ass in the Gulf?
Lit up Bagdad like the fourth a' July!
Whupped those sand-niggers into a parking lot!

The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati
bright as butter
succulent cherries
sounds I can paint on the air with my breath
dance through like a Sufi mystic
words I can weep and howl and devour
words I can kiss and taste and dream
this tongue
I take back.

Wow, this is seriously intense! Cuts deep don't it?.
With my "southern accent" people don't always get a lot of what I am saying. All languages are important. This was such a beautiful and sad poem Thank you for posting.

"When we lose language
does culture die?"

Such a painfully true assessment.
My mother was a member of the Gaelic League when she grew up. She attempted to teach me her language, but hard-headed deafness was all she found.

Regret!

This part (below) struck me most. There are unfortunately a lot of ignorant people in the U.S. that think if someone speaks English poorly, they aren't intelligent or trustworthy. It doesn't matter if the fluent English speaker in this instance can't speak another language. It doesn't matter if the non-fluent English speaker speaks 5 other languages, or only one other language for that matter, if English is not their native tongue.
My ex boyfriend was Punjabi and started learning English at the age of 11 when he moved here from India. He spoke slowly, had occasional problems with grammar, and sometimes I had to repeat myself or slow down. I remember one of my housemates was also Punjabi and once she told me, "Jane, I wish you could speak Punjabi fluently so you could hear the way your boyfriend speaks in his native tongue. He is the most eloquent and beautiful speaker I have ever met. His words are poetry."
How could I know that about him without someone telling me? What a wonderful thing. I loved listening to him speak in Punjabi even if I couldn't understand most of it. A phone call to his mom was music to my ears.

Anyway, this part:

Listen:
my father speaks Urdu
language of dancing peacocks
rosewater fountains
even its curses are beautiful.
He speaks Hindi
suave and melodic
earthy Punjabi
salty rich as saag paneer
coastal Kiswahili
laced with Arabic,
he speaks Gujarati
solid ancestral pride.
Five languages
five different worlds
yet English
shrinks
him
down
before white men

A woman was on the phone in a supermarket talking in a strange language, the guy behind her seem irritated and when she got off the phone, he said to her, I didn't want to be rude, so I waited until you were done with your conversation, but this is America where we speak English, if you want to speak mexican go back to mexico.

The woman responded, actually sir I was speaking Navajo, now if you want to speak English, why don't you go back to England.......

anyhow, why are people so afraid of other cultures?