Transcripts of Hannah Lee

My name is Hannah Lee, and I'm gong to tell another literacy story. In this one I think it's a little bit more personal. I know that the others that I shared were personal, but I guess it's a little bit more unique to me. But maybe not. When I think about growing up, and even my studies, my undergrad and grad studies. I was an English major as an undergrad, and a writing studies major as a grad student. The common theme was just communication. And I think it has to do with growing up Korean-American. I was born in Chicago. My mom was born in South Korea, as was my father, and I just remember growing up with two languages, and always kind of being a mediator. My mom still doesn't speak English as well as she would like. My Father was fairly fluent, he translated at our Church. But I always, I always just remember, being a mediator or like a translator. And so when mail came, like credit cards or whatever came, or something came and my Mom couldn't understand, she would just give it to me, and I would just read through it and translate for her. I don't remember being burdened by it, it was just something that we did. Or that I did, and my sisters did it too. 

Because I was older, I was always the one who got asked to do it first. And then my Mom started losing her hearing when I was in High School. And she came almost completely deaf probably, by the time I graduated High School. She can kind of hear with hearing aids, but she is basically deaf. And so I just remember having to re-learn how to communicate with her. So we had that language barrier of me always translating in English to her, and then now all of a sudden, it was this other barrier, this sound barrier. And so, like, I had always acted as a mediator growing up, but now it was very, like it was my job, like every time I would come home from college, my mom would have a stack of bills or whatever, and she would ask would be waiting for me, asking me, "Ok, can you call this company, can you call this doctor?" And so I would have to communicate and call these people, and she would be sitting next to me communicating in Korean. So not only the sound barrier, but it was also the language barrier. And so I just remember always getting frustrated, wondering why is it that my entire life, I've just had to be this mediator or this translator. And when I when I look at other people who communicate with their parents, I just marvel. Because the can speak in a common language, and they understand each other perfectly. And it just amazes me, it's just a foreign thing, when I see that. And I remember maybe sometimes feeling a little bit bitter. Like, "Why do I have to struggle so much in trying to communicate with my mom?" 

But then at the same time I think it helps have more empathy and to understand people better. Because I, because once you get through, once you're able to communicate, it's just that much more precious, when you're finally able to communicate something to someone. And so that's my literacy story. Another funny thing is that, it's pretty entertaining when you see me communicating with my mom, and also my sister and my brother. Because we've invented a kind of language that we speak amongst each other. And I didn't even realize it until someone pointed it out to me, that I gesture a lot. I try not to do it in public. But I gesture a lot, with, when I communicate or when I talk. And especially when I talk with my mom, I make sure, she also lipreads, so I make sure that I distill, if she gives me a piece of paper to translate. I make sure to distill everything on that piece of paper into words that she'll understand, in Korean, that's easy to recognize when you lip-read. And if I have to translate to English I also translate using words that are easy to lip-read. If she doesn't understand that, then I'll write it down for her, and then all the while I'm gesturing. And we've invented a kind of sign language that we only use in the family. It's just kind of regular gestures, but amplified so that she understands. And so in a sense, we've created this language, just so that we can communicate with each other. And I didn't really think about how unique that is, until someone pointed it out to us. Because it's just normal, it's just something that I've grown up with. So that is my literacy story.