Assumptions on fluency and professionalism

Originally written March 2019

"You have been here long enough to be perceived as civil"

Very often, people say things like: " Your English is very good, for how long have you lived in the US?" and then they are very surprised when they realize it was a very short time for developing this level of proficiency they've observed.

There is a wrong assumption that immigrants and refugees develop strong language proficiency through merely "living" in the United States when in most cases this is not true.

 
In fact, a significant proportion of immigrants come to the US already fluent or with an upper-intermediate level of proficiency because of the quality of language education they received in their home country, as a result of sincere self-learning efforts, or because of prior exposure to the English language and culture in their home countries (Most of African and Asian countries were former British colonies).
 

Meanwhile, some immigrants live in the US for decades and decades and never learn English or never reach a higher level of proficiency for so many factors mainly because second and foreign language acquisition is not a magical process, and English isn't a mineral in the American drinking water or air.

Most importantly, the United States -at least right now and in my experience in the last decade-is also built to facilitate the creation of linguistically and ethnically isolated communities, where you can live and work on the margins with your own folks without having to interact in English or with English speakers, it is not a place where people will welcome you with open arms and say hi to you if you look or sound different.

Besides being totally inaccurate and entitled, the assumption that any forms or signs of so-called "professionalism" you may show particularly with spoken language, is due to your prolonged exposure to "the American culture" suggests that other countries, their education, and professional settings, are almost always inferior and less developed than the US. 

So yeah, next time you want to compliment someone's ability to speak English, an international language and a dominant global culture, don't say stuff like that.

The divine gift of writing

Written originally on January 29th, 2023

 

ٱقۡرَأۡ بِٱسۡمِ رَبِّكَ ٱلَّذِي خَلَقَ (1) خَلَقَ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ مِنۡ عَلَقٍ (2) ٱقۡرَأۡ وَرَبُّكَ ٱلۡأَكۡرَمُ (3) ٱلَّذِي عَلَّمَ بِٱلۡقَلَمِ (4) عَلَّمَ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ مَا لَمۡ يَعۡلَمۡ (5)

1. Read! In the Name of your Lord who has created all that exists.
2. He has created humans from a clot.
3. Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous.
4. Who has taught ( the writing ) by the pen.
5. He has taught mankind that which they didn't know.

The first Quranic revelation to Prophet Muhammed صلى الله عليه وسلم

As I was going through my blog drafts on this blog from when I first began my English writing/blogging journey back in 2008 (90 unpublished drafts!), something I find myself doing every year or so, I found myself thinking of those commonly known, memorized, and recited verses of the Quran from Surat Al Alaq, I found myself feeling a sense of content and gratitude for the precious gift of writing and the ability to express oneself in spoken or written words to convey feelings and thoughts to others. 

As I read my posts on experiences I have passed, and experiences I still deal with, I also feel grateful that I have access to a good deal of my own words, thinking processes, and my feelings from a long time ago that feels like another lifetime, from times when I perhaps had more clarity at times, and more intensity at others, from stages in my life when I might have had more space to reflect, analyze, and contemplate, and better tools to navigate the world.

The irony in all of this is how I continue to experience navigating this world in similar ways, because I'm still the same person on the outside for all the environments I'm put in. It's crazy to think now that as time passes in years and decades, while a lot changes, a lot also remains the same. Not in so many good ways. 

It makes me a bit frustrated to imagine going through similar patterns and experiences since the first time I stepped out of Egypt in 2009, and until this day and time in 2023. Is this what they refer to with some fancy terms in English as re-exposure, or pro-longed exposure or something of that sort? Is that what they do research studies over years to write papers about?

On a good note and back to the beginning of my post, it does help me to see how I viewed novel experiences when I first went through them as a teenager who had just began wearing a scarf and spoke intermediate English with a British accent, and how I felt, versus how I might feel and respond now as a woman in her early to mid thirties who became an American citizen but still gets treated the same exact way no matter how far she has walked in the world and in her own internal journey.

We are fortunate when we can feel our feelings, and when we can understand why we feel them, we are fortunate when we can record those feelings and reactions and go back to them another time for guidance. Because we are living in a world where most people are conditioned to not feel their feelings, or don't have the space- or choose to not- to process feelings.