The blog post explores the loss of a previous existence of a writer who never comes to find himself in his new land.
Reading Lolita in Tehran of Azar Nafisi is a memoir of similar loss , although of not a refugee nor with a language barrier , as she writes and used to write in English. We can still see ‘the worm cut in half’ situation where one half is struggling to nostalgically cling to a past life which has ended and another struggling to make new beginnings. I believe, that as much as the writers find a niche in writing to bemoan their lost selves, their readers too find refuge in this storytelling. Michelle De Krester’s Miles Franklin award winning novel ‘Questions of Travel’ made me immerse myself in an experience of home, Sri Lanka, where the writer has left when she was fourteen. It is nostalgia, of no returning to a past that is no more, but also a more needful space, where migrants find refuge in their reluctance to cross cultures.

I remember when I first lived in Japan, in my early 20s I often felt like a 6 year old because my language was so limited. Later on a Japanese friend read an article that I had written for the school magazine and remarked that she was really surprised by how well-written it was. I realised that she had only ever heard me speak Japanese and so all she could know about me was all that I could express in my limited Japanese. I also remember when I lived in Poland, for the first few months I just sat like a rock, silent and uninvolved in all of the conversations that I tried so hard to understand. Even though the people were nice, there were no connections, not much emotions or joy conveyed and I even felt like my brain was growing duller…But when I learnt the languages of the countries that I lived in, it meant that I didn’t use English and as my vocabulary withered away, and ate away at my ability to express what was in my thoughts the way I wanted to, my English identity shrunk away too. Reading and reflecting on Natonek’s experiences made me more sympathetic to the plight of people who had come to Australia and struggled with English.

I also looked on the internet to find other people’s experience with language loss and identity loss and I felt like this poem really expressed the loss of connection, culture and family ties that people migrating to a new country experience.

L-a-n-g-u-a-g-e Loss
Alyza Garcia

A loss in language has cost me my last goodbye
Lost is my native tongue in the process of assimilation
Gone are parts of my identity during my journey in immigration
What I had as a child, fled like small sparks of ember
I have lost my roots in the chaos of colliding worlds.

I did not fight it, but I sure as hell regret it-
my loss of language, my loss of communication
to the place where I came from,
to the people who raised me,
to the culture that gives me an identity.

I subconsciously acquiesced to the-
w-o-r-d-s, the p-h-r-a-s-e-s, the s-e-n-t-e-n-c-e-s of the English language
Without protest, I adapted to the structure of letters, the foundations of grammar,
and the composition of the English speech

I have lost my roots in the chaos of colliding worlds.
I was not able to balance two realities on the palms of my hands
So one existent matter dominated the other
Soon my indigenous vocabulary was replaced with something I still find foreign
To this day, the distortion, the unevenness of these two worlds of past and present
Has left me lost in the abyss of being in between

A loss in language has cost me my last goodbye to her.
The moment I had my last chance to hear my grandmother’s voice
I hurt her with the silence of refusing to talk to her over the phone
I refused to speak with her because
a wave of guilt and shame crashed
and washed me away from her.

I lost the ability to speak the same language that we both shared
We no longer spoke with the same tongue.
So in some ways we became strangers
And that’s what hurts the most.

The next phone call from my home half way around the world,
My Lola could not even ask to hear my voice
She no longer had the ability to utter words of love,
or any word, in that matter.
Because her eyes had shut and her soul had rested.
I lost my roots in the chaos of a loss in language
And it has cost me my last goodbye with my Lola.