This blog is part of our series for AANHPI Heritage Month. You can check out the next blog in the series here.
My husband and I were happily settling into our second year as empty nesters when we joined an altogether different cohort: the sandwich generation.
Late last year, after my mom broke her arm and my dad’s cognitive abilities took a nosedive, we spent two weeks packing up their home of 50 years in southern Arizona and moved them into our Cape Cod house outside the nation’s capital.
That was the easy part.
Caring for parents in their 80s is equal parts tender and taxing—medications, appointments, ER visits and a television blaring all day long. But one of the harder parts hasn’t been logistical. It’s been linguistic.
I’m watching a language barrier with them widen in real time, as my aging Korean American parents lose their English at a faster pace than I can ever hope to improve my Korean.
My parents moved to the United States when they were in their late 20s and early 30s, and I was 14 months old. In a decision my mom laments to this day, my parents never forced me or my younger sisters to speak Korean to them. So, like many immigrant families, they usually spoke to us in their native language, and we responded in English.
That was fine in my childhood, and for decades into my adulthood. But now, I watch my 88-year-old dad losing his grasp on his memories almost at the same clip that his English is slipping away. I know there is a connection.
My dad ran a tae kwon do studio in Tucson for more than 45 years. He drove a city bus for nearly as long. He has legions of dedicated students and regular passengers who have described their conversations with him and all that he’s taught them—whether about martial arts or life in general. But today, when an old friend rings, my dad can typically muster a three-minute exchange, always confined to friendly responses (“Fine, thank you!”) to questions he’s asked by the caller.
At other times, though, I hear him with my mother, chattering away in Korean about the K-drama episode they’re watching, or about what a former church friend had called my mom to share. Sometimes, a fellow former tae kwon do instructor my dad has known since he first moved to the U.S. will call, too. I’m always stunned by how during these other conversations, while still on the short side, his words flow freely.
My mother also drifts back to Korean these days, as her cognitive decline also becomes more apparent—perhaps in reaction to the permission she’s been given to relax, no longer responsible for being my dad’s sole caretaker.
She often starts joint conversations with me and my non-Korean husband in English—and then suddenly shifts into Korean.
The language chasm is definitely wider with my dad, however. I’m unable to use my inadequate, clumsy Korean to explain what’s happening on cable news shows he likes to watch, albeit with a more blank expression than in years prior—or to catch his attention when a doctor is explaining a diagnosis or prognosis. I always wonder, would he be able to retain this kind of information for more than five minutes if I could just explain it in his native tongue?
My husband misses the talks he used to have with my dad over politics, about the things he read in the many newspapers he once devoured. On everything, my dad always had opinions. Nowadays, he rarely voices those opinions—at least in English.
My husband recently took my parents to the Department of Motor Vehicles so my mom could get a new license and my dad an ID card with his new address—our address. When the clerk asked my dad if he also wanted to register to vote, he told them yes. But when he, a former registered Republican who shifted to the left during Donald Trump’s first term, was asked what party he wanted to register with, my dad looked to my husband for help: “Which one is better?”
It was just another example of a part of him that is lost to me. If I could speak Korean, really speak Korean, we could have talked about this, along with so many other things now beyond my reach.
The post When Family Roles Reverse and Words Fall Short: Taking Care of My Aging Parents Through a Widening Language Gap appeared first on National Women's Law Center.