| I was sometimes called upon to interpret when someone from the government wanted to speak to an American about something. I found this to be extremely hard because I experienced the conversation equally in both languages physically and emotionally speaking and it took me a minute to put myself in the French mode or the American mode which is what I had to do to translate verbally. I found that there are certain expressions or moods coming from a certain way of saying things that cannot be translated as perfectly as I felt them. I had become a completely bilingual and bicultural person. I could be an American and I could be a French person and yet what was I really? Eventually, my Frenchism and my Americanism were sometimes put to the test. I sometimes felt I was masquerading as one or the other nationalities not only because I was not born in either country, but because I sometimes appeared not to know as much as I should because I might become confused between the two languages, my two native tongues. |
I had become a completely bilingual and bicultural person. I could be an American and I could be a French person and yet what was I really? |