<p>Just wondering what ur guys' thoughts about this is. I never really thought about it until yesterday, when my parents commented that I had "no culture" because of the way I talked, dressed, acted etc. as if I've become too "Americanized" LMAO. My parents are immigrants...mom is a U.S. citizen (dad has a green-card)..so i suppose that makes me a first generation American? lol...However, I can speak my native language almost fluently..but I don't always act accordingly to how i'm 'supposed' to...I kinda feel as though our generation aren't very proud of our heritage and whatnot...</p>
<p>Does anyone feel this way as well? It kind of makes me feel a bit sad, tbh.</p>
<p>Would any of you guys feel like you're not in touch with your 'roots' anymore?</p>
<p>(kind of weird but...) when you have ur own kids someday do u plan on bringing them up the 'American' way or [insert wherever ure from way]?</p>
<p>Perhaps this generation’s culture solely contrasts with previous generations’ cultures.</p>
<p>Anyone who has been here for more than a generation or two has lost his or her’s native culture, generally. </p>
<p>You haven’t lost that “culture”, you’ve gained another.</p>
<p>I too am a first-gen. I am extremely proud of my heritage even though I cannot speak fluently any of my parent languages.</p>
<p>I’m going to take Vietnamese at the community college, so I can retain my culture.</p>
<p>^ It’s different. Learning a native language as a second language is not retaining culture, it’s merely knowing a language. Once you learn something as a second language, you lose all the meaning behind it. You no longer are able to think in that language, therefore it is essentially useless except solely for communication purposes.</p>
<p>I guess what you’re saying is correct.</p>
<p>However, I believe I should take Vietnamese to speak it fluently though since I do want to communicate well with my relatives when I go back to Vietnam. Besides, my Vietnamese speaking skills are atrocious. I can’t speak well with proper grammar and enunciation.</p>
<p>Is it possible to have two “first languages” then? Because I learnt my mother tongue at three and then learnt English. Now I am more fluent in English but find that I can switch to thinking in my mother tongue as well. </p>
<p>About culture…I think that a lot of kids of this generation have forgotten their old culture and adopted the new one. Most of the Indian (Sindhi) kids in HK are not Indian in anything but their looks, but then, this is to be expected because they no longer have a homeland as theirs was lost during the Parition of India and Pakistan. But I think, or I HOPE that I’m not one of them because I spent 5 years in India (11-16) and I find that my thinking is Indian.</p>
<p>It is possible to have two first languages and be entirely bilingual. I meant trying to learn a new language once you were fully ingrained in another language (usually it can’t happen past 4 or 5).</p>
<p>I’m a first-generational American as well. I learned my native language first, and then English at around 4 years old. It sucks though, cause I’m no longer fluent in that language. I still automatically say certain words in that tongue, but I stopped thinking in it, and I can’t really form complicated sentences anymore. I can understand a lot of it fine though.</p>
<p>Meh. I think I’m really Americanized. I still have traditional foods for dinner and visit every few summers (I’m going in two months, actually), but I’ve lost a lot of cultural ties, which is unfortunate.</p>
<p>What does it mean “think” in another language?</p>
<p>^Well, don’t you think in English?</p>
<p>^^ Do you think in words? I know some people don’t…</p>
<p>^When one writes on here, they must be thinking in words, right? Perhaps I am being narrow-minded…</p>
<p>ok I am even more confused now. I doubt anybody thinks “OK I will go get some juice now” and gets the juice. It’s a lot faster and intuitive than that. I think, it basically means which language you feel comfortable in and which you feel is your own.</p>
<p>Right…but when you write essays and think of what to say and just go over things in your head, isn’t it IN english? Not everything is straight-up instinct (no language) for me.</p>
<p>No one can have no culture in my opinion.</p>
<p>^No individual or no generation or no group or no what? What are you saying exactly…?</p>
<p>No one person. Which in turn is no group, and no generation. EVERYONE HAS CULTURE, in other words. :P</p>
<p>^Alright then. I mean, there are clearly DIFFERENCES in culture, which is why comparative measures are very useful, I think.</p>
<p>Having lived in the US and the UK all I can say is that it is imossible to give children a culuture of from the country that you are not living in (though having a father (and his father’s father etc.) from Belfast when living South Boston was definately interesting…)</p>