Language: The Key Ingredient

The day before I boarded the plane to leave Bangladesh for the United States, my best friend texted me, “I am so happy for you, but don’t change much, stay like this.” I stared at the words, puzzled.  I did not understand why I would change, what she meant by the word “change”. Aging, yes, that was inevitable, but beyond that, I could not imagine becoming someone else. I carried that ambiguous thought with me until one day in college, when a classmate in my English class told me she never would have guessed that I hadn’t grown up in the U.S. Her words echoed like a missing puzzle piece snapping into place, suddenly making my friend’s message clearer. I did not ask her why she couldn’t tell, but judging from the situation, I came to the conclusion that it was merely a matter of my speaking ability in English, which is my second language, my first being Bengali.

I do not necessarily look American, but I may sound American. That thought kept buzzing in my ears. I am still more comfortable with Bengali than English, and I am still learning English every day. Yet hearing those words shook me to my core. Over time, more and more people added themselves to the list of those who could not guess my origin unless I told them. At first, I felt a surge of relief; this was the key ingredient to surviving here. I could blend in, form connections. But that relief soon curdled into a question: if I could seamlessly mimic another culture, what was left of my originality? I began to wonder if the self my friend wanted me to keep still existed at all.

Growing up, I loved watching Disney. As a teenager, I binge-watched late-night shows, especially the one hosted by Jimmy Fallon, a very nice guy. I carefully observed how the guests spoke in these shows, how characters talked in movies. I was not confined only to the academic curriculum. I was used to getting praised for speaking “good English” back in Bangladesh. It was somehow embedded in my personality, perhaps even my identity. My love for American pop songs earned me the nickname ‘the English singer’—friends who heard me sing often remarked on how much I sounded like the artists. English was always woven into who I was, but now, why does it make me feel like I’m losing myself? Complex, baffling thought.

Maybe it is because I spoke Bengali for most of my life until now. I made jokes in Bengali, shared secrets in Bengali, and carried its rhythm in my everyday speech. Bengali is not just a language but a culture, a history glorified through poetry, protest, and pride. The beauty of Rabindra Sangeet or the fire of Kazi Nazrul’s words cannot be understood by people who do not share this language. Even something simple, like how singing a song by Tahsan could once be the perfect way to impress a crush, is part of a world they will never fully know.  Everything feels shifted.  To think that one day my future children might not speak it well or might not feel its depth at all makes me wonder what pieces of myself, and of my culture, could be lost along the way.

I am such a proud Bengali speaker living in an English-speaking room. I am not in the wrong room, but roots are where I am tied; that’s how I feel. I cannot help but imagine a lot of people go through this same experience, some fully realizing it, others perhaps never naming it. Language is never just words—it carries memory, emotion, and identity. Losing ease in Bengali feels like losing a way of thinking, a way of belonging. It’s a conflicting feeling that may seem trifling to some but a gigantic weight to others who tend to hold on to things like me. I stand here, a testament to two worlds, knowing that my journey will forever be defined by the complex song sung between the language I am mastering and the one I am fighting to keep.