Speaking for Two: How Kids Navigate Heritage Language, Culture and Identity

SBS Australia

26-06-2025

LISTEN TO
SBS Audio
26/06/2025 31:58 English
Credits:
Host: Rune Pedersen joined by Stefan Delatovic
Producers: Rune Pedersen at Onomato People, Stefan Delatovic
Writers: Rune Pedersen and Stefan Delatovic
Artwork: Wendy Tang
Post production and sound design: Dom Evans and James Coster at EARSAY
SBS Audio team: Joel Supple, Max Gosford, Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn
Guests: Pey Chi, Artist and Restaurateur. Jim Hlavac, Translator and Interpreter and adjunct senior research fellow at Monash University. Danny Tran, Journalist and Investigative reporter at the ABC.
Stefan
How humans talk is an SBS podcast recorded on Wurundjeri, country. We pay our respects to the custodians of this land, which has been shaped by stories and language and love for generations.
Rune
So the problem with doing this podcast is that I now see language phenomena everywhere and a thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is people navigating family, heritage, culture and languages, their first language being English, here in Australia, and their parents having another one. And it's not my experience, but it will be my son's experience.
Stefan
Well, it's funny, you bring this up. I have this friend, Paige chi, who's this wonderful artist, and recently she stepped away from her arts practice to go and work with her family, running their family restaurant. And I just, I don't know, I always felt like there's a story there that speaks to this phenomenon you're talking about.
Rune P
Stefan
Rune
Chapter One, the artist and the restaurant.
Pey Chi
I am Pey Chi, also known as Peggy. I've sort of got two two names, two lives, so mum's Hopkin and dad's haka. They're sort of like dialect slash people from China. So they both speak those languages, but they didn't speak that at home. They spoke Mandarin and they also spoke English. I think Mum spoke a lot of English to us, and then dad would speak Mandarin, but mostly I would say it's like an English speaking household when we
Stefan
were growing up, did you learn Mandarin and other
Pey Chi
We went to me and my sister and my brother would go to Chinese school every Saturday in Box Hill. It was awful. Why was it awful? Why would you want to be Chinese in White Australia? I just wanted to watch home. In a way. I wanted to be a white girl with blonde hair. I did not want to be at Chinese school writing like one word like 100 times.
Stefan
Is it the kind of experience where you look back on it now and you're glad you went through that? Or do you still like, oh man, Chinese school?
Pey Chi
No, I well, wish that. I actually. I feel like if I grew up in an environment,
Pey Chi
I was taught to love my heritage, then maybe I would have appreciated at the time, but at the time, I just didn't want to be there.
Stefan
How did you feel about the restaurant when you were a kid?
Pey Chi
It was just there. It wasn't like, I didn't think about it because I, I tried working here when I was in, like, primary school, yeah, but I mean, I would always get takeaway, yep. So I always call up, can I have honey chicken? That's my order. Yeah, honey chicken,
Stefan
Did your art practice engage with your heritage at all?
Pey Chi
I think I started off just looking at cute stuff. I think I was really cautious of Orientalizing myself, because I felt like I only enjoyed being Asian later in life. I would say, like, when I like, five years ago, yeah. So really quite fresh.
Stefan
Does you the artist, communicate differently than you the restaurant tour?
Pey Chi
Yes, I'm more conservative. Yeah, I feel it was. It's funny going into both spaces now. I don't sometimes I don't feel as politically engaged, because after a shift, I'm just tired, yep, I just want to look at stupid shit or watch like stuff on Netflix. I don't necessarily want to be politically engaged, which I had never thought that was a thing. Like I thought that people who didn't want to be politically engaged were just lazy or just didn't care about the world, but because now I like, understand that, like,
Stefan
It's hard when you step back into the art world. Like, do you notice that you're are you thinking? Talking differently, and I feel like I have to catch up.
Pey Chi
Yeah, yeah. I feel like I have to go into more of a politically engaged because my friends in the art world are like, super on top of things. They're doing great work, and I'm not engaged in that on day to day. So yeah, when I, like, when I hung out with them, I'm like, Oh, I just have to switch on a different part of the brain. Whereas here it's, it's not, I don't switch it on at all. It's just about meeting people where they're at, no matter what party, whoever they want to vote for conservative, whether they're white, old, Asian, young, disabled, whatever like. It's just meeting people where they're at, giving them, trying to be friendly, giving them, hopefully, really good service. That's my goal, making people feel comfortable so it's different.
Stefan
Do you feel more connected to your heritage? 100,000%
Pey Chi
I think like I only really started expressing my Asian culture when I started working here, I feel like I had to what's the phrase, like, own my chops or something, phrase that's like a biking phrase. That's definitely a thing people say, Okay, I don't know where it comes from. I feel like I have ownership over my heritage more so now I feel like I understand the bigger picture in terms of, like, the Malaysian Chinese diaspora, because my language gets tested all the time here, it also gets questioned a lot. Like aunties and uncles will be like, Why don't you know Hakka? Why don't you know Hopkin? Why don't you know Cantonese? I'm like, mate, I was born here. Like, they don't understand the struggle, right? Of like not wanting to be Asian, so I feel like I sort of have had to prove myself and learn language to understand everything better.
Stefan
It sounds like you're describing an experience where more regularly speaking that language and understanding the words that people are using connects you more deeply to that heritage.
Pey Chi
Yeah, yes. It's like, really empowering to like, like, I have this, I've got regulars, and it's really empowering to be like, to code switch and to be like, I don't think I can do it. I can't. It doesn't feel natural to fake it, but obviously it happens, right? We all code switch. My dad code switches. If he came out right now to say hello to you guys, he would be like, Hey mate. How do you know? But he does not talk like that. Yeah, I feel like I just, can you connect better? Because then, like, they see you, like, Code switching is like, sort of a means of, like, okay, like, you're a safe person. For me, I think that's how I perceive it when I use it, when I do code switch, when I do put on my Malaysian Chinese accent, it's saying, like, Oh, I see you. We're both from the same place. I think that's really special, that I get to, like, be in the same place with aunties and uncles and, like, young Asian people who also have Malaysian accents and that like, we get to, like, I get to meet them here and give them food and, like, see them every week or every two weeks.
Rune
As I was sitting there and eating my delicious food, listening to Stefan and Pei chi having a conversation, it was very clear to me that there is a lot of stuff happening for people navigating different languages and cultures at home andor at work. And when we dive into the language bits of that, it can get a little bit confusing. So before we go on, here is Stefan de ladovic in a bubble bath to explain,
Stefan
Basically translation, interpretation and language brokering are not the same thing, but most people lump them together like leftover dip at a party. So translation is written. You see it on websites, in contracts, manuals, when you see words jumping from one language to another on paper or screen. That's translation, interpretation, that's spoken, conferences, courtrooms, emergency rooms, it's live. It's real time, and if you mess up, someone might end up in the wrong jail cell or with the wrong medication. Both require accuracy and a code of ethics. It requires the person doing it to be impartial. And neutral. Less formally, we have code switching, like when you drop into a different tone of voice when your boss enters the room, and language brokering, Oh, baby, that's when maybe a kid translates for their parents at the bank, the doctor's office, or in the middle of a tense parent teacher meeting. It's messy, it's beautiful. It's not trained or certified, but it happens every single day. So whenever you hear translation, think text interpretation, think speech code switching. Think Superman changing in the phone booth and language brokering. Think life raw, unfiltered, unpaid and often underappreciated. Got it good. Now get out
Rune
Chapter two, the language expert train. Translating and Interpreting are obviously difficult and demanding jobs that you study for years to be able to do. I wonder what it's like for a kid to be doing that. I wanted to talk to an interpreter or translator to find out more.
Jim
I'm Jim Hlavac and I'm an interpreter and translator.
Oh, convenient.
What skills are children using to be good language brokers,
Jim
Mediation skills, how to interact, how to be the intermediary between people. That's what mediators do in in court, for example, in tribunal, hearings, etc, per hearing, they're working between two parties. The the interests that they're protecting are their parents, typically, and their own children have a sense of what they're doing, how they're doing it and and that what they do does not endanger or jeopardize their relationship with others. So they're developing really high level soft skills to interact with people. Yes, they're also developing their linguistic skills, because just because you're bilingual does not make you an automatic interpreter and translator. You actually have to practice and learn and perfect the skill of moving seamlessly from language, from one language into another without any thinking time. Virtually, they're also acquiring world knowledge, so they're actually exposed to interactions in scenarios which are typically only reserved for adults, and this can include, let's say, medical results. This can include discussions with a lawyer about if there's been a car accident or there's an insurance claim, etc. So you know, children, before their time, become exposed and have to be protagonists. They're speaking. They're interacting in these interactions in a way which lot of other children are spared. So it doesn't happen to other children who grow up, perhaps monolingually, that they're that they find themselves in these situations which are otherwise reserved for adults.
Rune
What kind of psychological or emotional effect can that have on on a child that younger or adult being the voice of their parents,
Jim
it varies on the child. There are lots of children who who do this easily. They don't think anything about it. They don't for them. It's no big deal if I have to do it, okay, whatever, and we'll get it over and done with. This is all part of me, being a member of the family. And so there are children who talk about they're actually feeling empowered. And they are empowered in that they occupy a role that children in monolingual families typically don't occupy. They become the go to person in the family for so many things. On the other hand, there are some children who don't like it, who feel uncomfortable, who don't like the emotional stress, who feel overwhelmed and like they don't know they honestly, they often don't know what to do. In some situations, when it's a jam, let's say there's a criminal charge against the father and there's a summons which arrives in the mail. They have to read it. They find out something which they probably didn't want to find out. They then have to side translate this to the parents or to whoever, and then they they might that might precipitate conversations between them and the parent about what happened, what's what's going to happen when if they approach a lawyer, what have you? So does put children in a situation where sometimes they don't feel so comfortable, and some people, some children also talk about, I simply don't have the linguistic skills to fully render this this complex, let's say insurance jargon. I'm. I just can't do this, so I'll just pick and choose certain certain points that I can convey, and that's all that I pass on, but that can have obviously dangerous consequences for for the parents, so it's a risky business as well.
Rune
Are there any sort of advice or guidelines for parents that who rely on children to do this, this interpretation to help keep the relationship and arrangement healthy
Jim
in the first place, they should be told that there are for lots of interactions. There are professional interpreters available, and they should be using those services if they go to hospital. Now it's hospital policy to not allow family members to broker, and instead, a professional interpreter is needed for many reasons, firstly, to make sure that there's accuracy. Brokers are not obliged to be accurate. As I said, they often don't. They don't do it. It's not that they intentionally want to be inaccurate, but they simply can't, or don't feel that they should convey what is being said by one person entirely to the other. They change things, they leave things out, what have you. Secondly, they can be in situations, particularly medical ones, when they're exposed to things that they should not be. If it's an intimate medical issue that one of their parents has. Then, is it their place to be there? That's the one piece of advice. The other thing is, though, these these linguistic skills, which brokers do display, qualify them well to well, we should encourage them to continue their acquisition of the what we call here in Australia, their heritage language fairly soon after starting school, English becomes their dominant language, and the other language doesn't develop at the same level, compared to, let's say, homeland speakers. So they need to be provided with encouragement, resources and to attend formal instruction in the language where that is possible because they have they're already developing a great set of linguistic skills. These need to be cultivated because they can actually have a profession that they could walk into later on after engaging in training and and so forth. So we squander our linguistic resources in this country by not enabling young children to take the acquisition and learning of their parents heritage language further, and not enabling them to become language teachers, translators, interpreters, and we perform so badly. Rune in this respect, internationally, Australian businesses, companies go overseas and don't even think of taking interpreters, translators with them. They don't even think of translating the taxation laws, the company licensing laws, etc.
Rune
Why do you think that is why do we squander those skills in Australia? Is it an attitude thing? Is it a funding thing?
Jim
English is the unquestioned number one language in the world. There are a lot of people in this country who think people should just speak English and everything will be easier. Look, all migrants to Australia know that they it's in their advantage, to their advantage, to acquire English, but speaking another language is an asset in many ways, cognitively, in terms of career options, where the proficiency in another language is an asset, which can be the difference between you getting a job mobility and also having points of reference to compare, let's say, English speaking Australian culture, with something else. If you have a point of reference, you're actually richer and more insightful human, human being, typically, because you've grown up with these, these two different ways of looking at things, of expressing things.
Rune
I'm already sensing now that my my Danish, is getting old. Oh, it's it's stuck in time in a weird way. And I haven't been out for that long. Could you speak to that topic? Because I know it's also a thing in Australia that you have people coming from one country, and then they carry over a language, and then you have new migrants arriving, and the languages are different,
Jim
that's right. So to give a case which has been well studied, there are lots of migrants from Italy who left in the 1950s and they might have only spoke spoken a dialect, or spoken a regional variety of Italian, and they've been here for 60 years, and there might be newcomers from that area, from Italy, who speak quite differently. They're more likely to speak a more standard variety of Italian. The dialect might. Dialects also change as well. They're not just fossilized, things that stay in the same way forever. They're also dynamic. There are lots of manners as. Lots of metaphors, lots of references to popular culture, TV shows, stars, music, etc, which you index, which you talk about all the time, because it's, it's, it's what your recollections from from that period were, and they're totally different from these more recent groups, as opposed to the the older ones. So that's it will get if you like rusty. But what that means, and I'm encouraging you to consider passing Danish onto your son, is the challenge is, is to keep up with media, with language resources for kids in Danish, or whichever language it is that the parents wish to, wish to, to pass on to their children, because it's important that the children receive a model of the language, which is not just an immigrant who departed 2030, years ago, but the language that they speak has a whole society where people speak it and what they're doing, and there's other people out there who speak this language, other than my parents, so that the parent the child can see that this has broader horizons than my my child parent relationship. So that's that's a challenge, though. It's not easy, particularly because Australia is geographically so far away from other places, it's not that easy to travel. But media has done, you know, electronic media has enabled us to to access television and videos and lots of all sorts of things, you know, kind of from overseas. So there are fewer obstacles now for you to keep up contemporary Danish.
Rune
Yeah. I Okay, yeah. Point taken. Chapter Three, the communicator. After talking to Jim about how language can get stuck in time, I wanted to hear from someone who's lived the experience. So I met up with Danny Tran an ABC investigative reporter who communicates for a living, but also grew up in Australia, navigating two worlds and two languages.
Danny
I, you know, as an adult, I've shown a little bit more interest in learning about Vietnamese. So it was at my, my wife's suggestion, that we get a tutor from Vietnam. She started at first her Vietnamese has become quite good, and mine is, mine isn't still not fantastic. But we got a tutor from Hanoi, and just having a chat to her, you realize how much language has developed over time. Because when the Vietnamese refugees came to Australia, their language stopped developing. So as a result, if you listen to, you know, for example, me Speak in Vietnamese. It sounds like, Hey, comrade, groovy. It's the language has stopped developing in the same way that the French in Canada, the COVID Choir is extremely old, because you're not really getting new media in that language, at least not for quite some time before the internet became a thing, right? So the materials that you have from quite some time ago, the speakers that you have learned Vietnamese or any other language at a certain point in time, and then they stopped speaking to new people and being involved in a society where the language was actively developing because the word that I called my father in Vietnamese Gul it's like, an extremely old fashioned word. It's sort of like, not really, dad. It's like, kind of like Uncle. And the difference, you know, normal young Vietnamese people in Vietnam would not call their parents this. And when my wife mentioned it to this tutor in Hanoi. She was just like, what word she use? She said it again. She was like, that word has was used by extremely wealthy families in literally, the 40s and the 50s. Like that word is not used even the word for like Asia, right? So the word for Asia that we've always used growing up here was agile, and it turns out that in the time since my parents got to Australia, decades ago, the word has been flipped around Vietnam. It's now Jo a I wouldn't have had any clue at all when you know the last time I visited Vietnam, I would have sounded insane, like an old timey monopoly man trying to get by the city being like, Excuse me, sir.
Rune
Yeah, I was thinking that before. When you said it like, paternalistic father.
Danny
I literally think it's kind of like, Papa, hello, Papa. That's fun. See, I mostly speak to people here, and I don't often. Can speak to someone with modern day Vietnamese other than this teacher. And she's very, she's very kind of, very gentle that I think she knows that the people who are seeking her out are speaking time capsule Vietnamese. So she's like, Oh, the word we actually use is this, or this is the modern word. And it's always so enlightening, because I'm like, Oh, so you flip these words around, or that this word doesn't exist anymore, or this word is now a slur.
Rune
Danny
Yeah, you do. You do want to know that, and you don't realise also. The other thing is that when language is stuck, the ideas from that time are dragged forward, right? You 50s, when it was happening, it was completely fine to refer to that, and that's why you gotta really be careful, because there are all these political sensitivities the language has developed. So is the political situation, and so is the definitions of what's appropriate and what isn't appropriate, and when you're stuck unknowingly, and you go to another country and you try to use that language, that becomes really complex. Thankfully, I did not find to set myself in a position, and I try not to use slurs, but wow, okay, I wish I knew, and it's hard, because in when you're speaking your first language and you're fluent, there's really no excuse for that, right? Because culturally, you should understand the problems or the issues or the situation, and you're also fluent in that language, and there's nothing stopping you from researching library cards free, right? The internet is right. There you can go and work out exactly what you're saying, the means are which and the implications that you're making, but in when it's a second language, and you may not be attuned to that, you might be learning by yourself, or you might be relying on somebody else's interpretation, and culturally, you're not 100% there, but you're trying your best. That is a little bit more complex. I'm not saying it's an excuse, but it's certainly something that you should be aware of, what the words you're saying are actually meaning, because you are a language learner at the end of the day.
Rune
So growing up in Melbourne and being a child of immigrant parents, did you ever have to help your parents navigate the English speaking system?
Danny
My parents were both professionals, so less so, but my grandparents, yes, yeah. So my grandmother didn't speak English, but my grandfather did English lessons. When he came to Australia, he actually learned English by watching the ABC, and I still remember watching some of these shows with him, where he practiced. And I'm pretty sure that I also learned by watching the ABC as well. So it's a very nice full circle moment. But you know, sometimes it'd be difficult, because you'd be at school and he'd pick you up and they'd want to say something, you'd have to act as the go between. It was a lot of pressure for a kid, especially now in hindsight, when I realized my Vietnamese wasn't that good, and I can't really express what a translator would express, right? Because when it comes to translation, you have to be on the ball, right. You have to be really careful about how you convey meaning. And I suspect that I was my Vietnamese, and what the meanings that I were conveying were probably like 80 to 90% correct, but not fully. I suspect that I did because I wanted the interaction to be over, because I was embarrassed about being Vietnamese and being different. You want to speed it up, you want to get it over with?
Rune
Yeah, okay, because, okay, let's, let's not, let's not be different.
Danny
Yeah, let's not be different. Whereas I feel like these days it's less so, you know, they it's just the fact of the matter that you know a lot of people you know didn't grow up speaking English, and it's not that big of a deal. Whereas back then it was like, do I have to do this again? It didn't happen too often, but the times that it had happened, I can't remember the instances, but I remember the feeling that rose up with me, which was,
Rune
okay, yeah, could you expand on that? Like, what were you? Were you thinking and what we would you feel?
Danny
I think going back, do you sort of feel? You just feel incredibly self conscious about having to act as a go between having to act as a broker. Now, in hindsight, I realised that part of what I was feeling was also trepidation and not having the level correct level of Vietnamese. My English was fine at that point in time, but my Vietnamese had already started deteriorating, and not having the right thing, right level of Vietnamese being able to express that probably caused me, you know, a frustration that I couldn't articulate at the time, and also you were just conscious of being looked at. You know, this is, this is around the time that you know the phrase stop the Asian invasion was happening, and you know, you're a child, but you become conscious of that,
Rune
of course, so you're standing out on the street, right?
Danny
Like it would often be in some kind of semi public situations where you would have to to do this kind of other school on the street, or something like that. Or if it happened, if people count the door and it was just, it was just too much for a kid to handle,
Rune
What would you what would you say to someone, someone like yourself that's in a similar situation now that has to do this kind of brokering.
Danny
Everyone's trying their best, and so are you, and that's the most important thing here. You may not have the perfect level of language. You may not be able to say exactly what you want to say, but what you're doing is probably acting out of love, acting out of kindness, and just try your best. There's nothing to be embarrassed about that's just that. That's something don't let, don't let what happen. To me, be dragged into where you are at the moment. I know it feels that way, but you shouldn't be embarrassed about who you are. Your culture that does horrible damage to you.
Rune
How humans talk is produced and written by Rune Pedersen from Onomato People, and Stefan Delatovic. Post Production and Sound Design was done by Dom Evans and James Custer at Earsay. The SBS team is Joel supple, Max Gosford and Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn, and our artwork is by Wendy Tang. Follow and review us wherever you find your podcasts.