www.thedaln.org 00:00:03,133 --> 00:00:04,067 Hi. My name is Deqa Mahammed, and 00:00:04,133 --> 00:00:06,434 I'm from Somalia. 00:00:06,501 --> 00:00:10,868 In Africa, born in Africa, and I'm going to be talking about my mom and 00:00:10,934 --> 00:00:15,400 her struggle with literacy when we came here. 00:00:15,467 --> 00:00:23,534 We came here in 1996, and none of us spoke English, none of us knew how to write, 00:00:23,601 --> 00:00:27,367 none of us knew how to read, none of us knew how to do anything. 00:00:27,434 --> 00:00:30,033 When we came here, we kinda had to start from scratch. 00:00:30,100 --> 00:00:32,534 Like my mom knew how to speak Arabic. 00:00:32,601 --> 00:00:36,234 She knew how to speak Somali, but she had no idea what the language was like. 00:00:36,300 --> 00:00:41,133 So upon coming here was very, very, very, very, very difficult for her. 00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:43,667 As it was for us, because we didn't know what was going on. 00:00:43,734 --> 00:00:45,868 We didn't understand what was going on. 00:00:45,934 --> 00:00:47,968 We weren't familiar with the territory. 00:00:48,033 --> 00:00:53,000 We didn't know anything. 00:00:53,067 --> 00:00:57,934 So, we've been here for about 14 years now, 00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:05,300 and it took my mom 14 years to develop the language. 00:01:05,366 --> 00:01:05,968 To learn English. 00:01:06,033 --> 00:01:07,634 To actually be able to read. 00:01:07,701 --> 00:01:10,067 To actually be able to write. 00:01:10,133 --> 00:01:13,167 And she can speak and she can understand, but 00:01:13,234 --> 00:01:18,234 she's not as good as I am, or she's not as good as the average American is, 00:01:18,300 --> 00:01:20,033 or person that came here when they were younger. 00:01:20,100 --> 00:01:24,934 She actually struggled very much to even comprehend something difficult. 00:01:25,934 --> 00:01:27,367 I mean she knows a little, 00:01:27,434 --> 00:01:32,033 but she doesn't know, she's not that like, profound when it comes to English. 00:01:32,100 --> 00:01:33,300 She is good at it. 00:01:33,367 --> 00:01:34,267 She can speak it. 00:01:34,334 --> 00:01:36,132 She can write it, but 00:01:36,200 --> 00:01:40,300 she is not the level that she should be at upon 14 years of coming here. 00:01:40,367 --> 00:01:44,267 When I talk to her, when we came here, and we learned English quicker than she did, 00:01:44,334 --> 00:01:49,267 because we're younger, when we're younger, it's easier for 00:01:49,334 --> 00:01:51,601 us to adopt information quicker. 00:01:51,667 --> 00:01:55,701 So when we came here and we learned English, we would teach her and 00:01:55,767 --> 00:01:59,000 we'd give her like a little. 00:01:59,067 --> 00:02:04,300 Like 8 o'clock pm after ESL classes, and we teach her the basics of English, 00:02:04,367 --> 00:02:06,901 like we teach her the alphabet and things like that. 00:02:06,968 --> 00:02:11,901 And eventually she got the hang of it, and she went to school for older ladies, 00:02:11,968 --> 00:02:15,000 where they taught her how to learn English, how to be able to read and write. 00:02:15,067 --> 00:02:17,000 And all that stuff. 00:02:17,067 --> 00:02:19,968 And she said the English language is the most difficult language she's 00:02:20,033 --> 00:02:21,200 had to learn. 00:02:21,267 --> 00:02:26,501 And it is because there's a lot of words that are hard to understand and 00:02:26,567 --> 00:02:28,400 there's a lot of silent words. 00:02:28,467 --> 00:02:31,801 I mean she's perfectly fluent in two other languages. 00:02:31,868 --> 00:02:35,234 She's a quick learner, so she kind of adapted to it really fast. 00:02:35,300 --> 00:02:39,467 But like I said, being illiterate upon coming here and 00:02:39,534 --> 00:02:43,534 then having to start from scratch, not only she had to adapt to the culture, but 00:02:43,601 --> 00:02:49,868 she also had to learn the language and become familiar with words 00:02:49,933 --> 00:02:53,834 that she's never known before, or words that she's never even heard of before. 00:02:54,868 --> 00:02:56,501 And it takes a long time. 00:02:56,567 --> 00:03:00,868 People are always saying ignorant comments like, if you don't know English go back to 00:03:00,934 --> 00:03:04,801 your country, or you kind of have to learn the language if you're here.