Dan Nguyen

Emilia Grant
UWRT 1103
September 3, 2014
Literacy and Culture: Three Vignettes

Vignette 1: I was raised in a traditional Vietnamese home by traditional
Vietnamese parents that just happened to live in the U.S. I am a first generation
Vietnamese American, and since I live in an english dominant country, eventually I was
going to have to learn English to be able to live here like my parents before me.
However I didn't begin to learn english until I was three years old, until then I was only
speaking Vietnamese. The only time I would hear english would be outside of my home
when my parents would talk to others or when I overheard other people talking, but
never inside. It was odd to me and I couldn't comprehend it.
I learned english from a variety of teachers, my father, my mother, my elementary
school ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher, but my first teacher wasnt even
an actual teacher, it really wasn't even a person. I started out learning english and
improving upon my literacy in an unconventional manner. My literacy of the english
language came from me watching cartoons as a child. Back then, I would be glued to
the television watching these animated characters get into odd situations. Learning
English from cartoons wasnt the main goal of me watching American television, it was
more a of side effect of my obsession with these animated characters. I learned english
by simply wondering what these characters where doing.
1
One of my favorite cartoons to watch when I was a child was Dexters
Laboratory which was centered around an extremely intelligent child as the title
character. I didnt understand a word of the show when I was younger, because Ive
never been exposed to it inside the house. While I didn't understand any phrases or
specific words, I eventually managed pick up on small worlds here and there, thanks to
my parents. Due to repetition, I was able to learn the names of the characters fairly
quickly, but I still needed help with nouns. For example Dexter would enter his
laboratory with a book, and sometimes he would say what he was doing as he did it. I
asked my mother what the word book meant and she told me it meant cu!n sch
which is book translated in Vietnamese. Little by little I began to pick up little words
which then lead to me learning larger words and even whole phrases if my parents
weren't tired of me asking yet.
Eventually I was able to pick up what was happening in each episode and as I
watched each cartoon and learned each new word, I would learn to apply it to the real
world. Whenever I saw a book, my mind would tell me that it was a cu!n sch and
then I would remember that it meant book in English. It wasnt just Dexters Laboratory
that taught me these basic words. Different cartoons taught me different words. Scooby
Doo taught me what dog and monsters meant, Powerpuff Girls taught me what sugar,
spice and everything nice meant, and so on. I learned a lot of words from shows that
where supposed to rot your brains as a kid. Cartoons was my first teacher of literacy,
although it only helped me learned the basics, whereas my next two teachers would
help me expand on my understanding of this new language.

2
Vignette 2: When I started elementary, my literacy was put to the test, literally. I
had been speaking english about half the time the other kids have and I was falling
behind on learning to write. At first my English was decent, well as decent as a child can
do anyways, but my writing skills were falling behind. My teacher was worried, my
parents were worried, and Ive disappointed my previous animated teachers. My
parents tried to help, but they simply had too much on their hands. Full time jobs and
raising a child doesn't exactly leave a lot of time for resting. After a while of struggling, I
was placed into an ESL class which was a class that taught English as a second
language to foreign speaking students. These classes would take place about two times
per week. When I first entered the class, it consisted of other students who also weren't
raised in an english speaking home. I was the only Asian student in the class, the entire
rest of the class spoke spanish, so not only I did I feel left out of my original class, I was
left out of my ESL class as well, since I was the only non spanish speaker there.
There I was introduced to Mr. Wilson, the ESL teacher, who became my second
teacher of the three to teach me english. Mr. Wilson seemed like a normal teacher,
dress shirt and tie, middle aged, and white. However despite the average looks, I
learned a lot from him. He was the main reason why I was able to catch up with the
other students. He was different than my other teachers too, instead of english
textbooks, he would bring in comic books like Peanuts and Garfield. From those
comic books he would teach us how to correctly use punctuation and basic grammar. I
don't think we ever even saw a textbook in that class. Also we got to keep some of the
comic books during Christmas time, which was nice.
3
Over the course of two years I learned a lot from him, but overtime I also became
more disinterested in going to ESL class as I learned more and more. After a while what
I was learning in ESL class had just become repetition of what I was already learning in
my original class since I was able to catch up. Unfortunately I started being lazier with
the work and I didn't feel like leaving my current class to go to a different class. So
eventually I asked my parents and teachers if i could leave ESL class because I felt I
had learned enough to be able to go without it. Looking back I probably could have used
the extra help to push my literacy, but I thank Mr.Wilson for taking the time to help me
learn how to write like a functioning seven year old.

Vignette 3: My third and final teachers of literacy was my parents. Just like
everybody else on the planet my parents had a huge influence on how I spoke and
behaved. As I said in the previous vignette, I started becoming lazier as I learned and as
I improved upon my literacy. At the time my mindset was that now Ive caught up, I can
be lazy and just coast by through the lessons. Well my parents werent having that! In
their words We didn't come here so you can be lazy and since this was said inside the
home, it was said in Vietnamese. My mom was a nice lady, but every child is scared of
the nice lady they call mom when she brought out the lion voice and called you by your
full name. My brief moment of laziness was placed to a halt after school. My parents
were different in their teaching methods because they didn't actually teach me
themselves. They couldnt, at the time my dad worked the night shift and was sleeping
when I got home and mom cooked as soon as she was home.
4
So they let me teach myself. Everyday after school my parents would make me
write an entire page copied from random things from books to news articles. I think I
wrote the instruction manual of the computer once. I just copied and wrote what ever I
could find. With every page I wrote, I had to explain what I wrote down to my parents.
No child wants to do work at home, but no kid is brave when it comes to talking back
their parents, so I did what they told me to do. Since I was lazy, I would try to make the
bare minimum to see if it was passable. There was one time where I tried to finish just in
time for a new episode of Dexters Laboratory and my handwriting was so unreadable
that I, the writer, couldn't even read it. Of course I had to redo it and of course I missed
the episode.
I hated it, I came home from school only to be home schooled. Although by the
end of the school year, despite how much I disliked the extra work, I didn't realize it, but
I was getting much better at writing and reading comprehension. My literacy was
improving, I understood more when I read and I was able to articulate myself better. I
eventually became one of the top students in the class over time. My parents always
pushed me, so the writing didn't stop, but I got better, even if I didn't notice it myself. At
the end of the school year, there was an award ceremony for the students. I won the
award for both reading and writing, and as a bonus I won the award for best
penmanship as well. So even though I didn't enjoy the work, I improved immensely
because of it and my parents tough love.
5