Can you lose your mother tongue? For many children of immigrant origin in Quebec, French takes over in their daily lives, to the point of making them passive bilinguals — that is to say, they can understand the language of their parents, but without being able to speak it. The duty presents the portraits of Quebecers who wanted to reclaim it. Today: the journey of Pascal Huynh, of Vietnamese origin.
When he watches the VHS tapes of his childhood, Pascal is amazed: the toddler he sees on the screen expresses himself perfectly in Vietnamese, his mother tongue. A language he has almost completely lost today.
“I was just a baby and you see me speaking with a perfect accent. My sentences were coherent and even more complex than what I do now,” admits the 32-year-old artist in an interview with The duty.
Born in Montreal, Pascal grew up hearing Vietnamese at home. His parents, who immigrated to Quebec at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, spoke it fluently among themselves. If this exposure allowed him to acquire a certain mastery of the language, it gradually disappeared after he entered daycare, where French took over.
“My parents then sent me to Vietnamese school on Sundays. I hated it, because it reminded me of my cultural differences. As I was the victim of racism and bullying, I did not want to associate [à la culture] “, he recalls.
It was only two decades later, in his twenties, that Pascal felt the desire to reconnect with his identity. “I am a Vietnamese person who was formatted as a Quebecer. All my cultural references are from Quebec. I lost everything that was Vietnamese in me over time,” he laments.
In his early twenties, he decided to go live for a year in Vietnam to immerse himself head first in the culture of his ancestors. He took Vietnamese lessons there on a daily basis in addition to traditional music lessons.
“Going to Vietnam was an effort to decolonize my mind and become Vietnamese again. It was to do justice to my story,” he explains.
A “magical” experience
Ten years later, Pascal has mixed memories of his experience. The one who hoped to “become Vietnamese again” concludes that he “did not succeed”.
When he thinks back to that year, he says that the friendships he forged were mainly with people of Vietnamese origin who grew up in Europe or the United States. “After 20 years in Quebec, you cannot erase and replace the lost years. I have parts of me that are Vietnamese, but the Quebec proportion is too great, and that’s okay,” he continues.
Despite everything, Pascal says he had a “profound” experience in Vietnam. His journey will notably have enabled him to better read, write and understand the language of his parents – even if maintaining a conversation remains just as difficult.
His meetings also offered him the chance to reconnect, in a way, with his grandparents. During his childhood, their communication was difficult. “The cultural barrier was too great. I didn’t know what they were talking about, we didn’t have the same references,” he recalls.
“But what was extraordinary during my year in Vietnam was that in each person I met, I saw a bit of my grandparents: the way they spoke, or even how they sat… was a magical moment. I got to know my grandparents through the Vietnamese I met there. »
Find your community
Even today, Pascal reflects on ways to reconnect with his culture; he does not rule out the possibility of going back to Vietnam for a long time. He also found a new group of friends with whom to discuss these identity issues.
“I now have queer, artist and Vietnamese friends. We see each other from time to time for Vietnamese dinners and we talk about these issues. We even say a few things in Vietnamese sometimes! he rejoices.
“We are all on the same path of political relearning and reappropriation. This is something that has re-emerged in me for a few years. Before, I was isolated, but now I feel that I have a community and that we are all in the same boat. »