Narrative Essay #2

Identity

Prompt: What 2 worlds do you balance between?

Focus skill: Incorporate parallelism into your story. This could be at the sentence or
paragraph level. You should also aim to include any skills mentioned and practiced in
prior narratives

French, Canadian
I’ve always called my grandparents Oma, and Opa, because that’s what my dad

told me their name was, so they became Oma and Opa.

Je toujours appeler mes grandparents Grandmaman, et Grand-papa, parce que

c'était quoi ma mère m'as dit de les appeler.

Every day when I come home from school I am always bombarded with the same

questions: how was your day, how was school, when do you work. I have to quickly dart

between languages and know when I can say one thing or another.

Quand je veux demander quelque chose à ma mère, je ferais mieux de le

demander en français, généralement si je demande en anglais, elle dira non. mais mon

français la rend heureuse, alors je demande toujours en français.

Whenever we visit family, I always feel bad for my father. He doesn't talk much to

grandmaman or grand-papa, he just sits there and hears them even though he can't

listen. He'll occasionally smile and nod and will answer the questions directed to him in

English, like a child who wont speak unless spoken too.

Ma mère a toujours été timide, alors quand nous rendons visite à Oma et Opa,

elle reste généralement seule, son anglais est excellent. Mais elle a toujours des
manières étranges de dire les choses, ou des paroles étranges, ce n'est jamais froid,

c'est "frisky".

While I've always known French I still don't feel like I'm quite “French”, as though

I haven't met some arbitrary requirement that anoints me with the right to tell people that

I am french. Like I'm a mouse chasing a slice of gruyere cheese, I can speak well, read

well, and understand perfectly, but writing has always been a challenge for me, as

though I'm some illiterate peasant.

À l'école, je disais à tous mes amis que je suis Canadien français, un peuple

distinct avec des centaines d'années de culture depuis les premiers colons français qui

ont mis les pieds au Canada. Habituellement, même si la seule partie qu'ils

comprennent est « Canadien », et comme c'était la quatrième année, certains

m'appelaient même le garçon du sirop d'érable, cela ne me dérangeait pas vraiment,

j'adore le sirop d'érable.

I would consider myself American Canadian, even though the only thing that

makes me American is my birth in the United States, and even though I've never lived in

Canada. But I've grown up in the United States my whole life, so I have a lot of

connection to it, and my family is in Canada, so I still consider it a large part of my

identity. So I never really know where I'm from or who I am, I've just borrowed pieces

and stuck them together to make who I am today.