a different language barrier

It must be disorienting enough--the term is culture shock for a reason--to go from a city of a million Chinese to suburb in middle America. To go from life with grandparents and extended family to the mother one hasn't seen in six years. Instant step-family. English everything. That food. But, so far, so good. She's a flexible fifteen, and nothing much yet phases--until she comes face-to-face with a girl whom she rightly assumes shares an ethnicity and a native language--but no ability to communicate in Chinese. "What's this? Oh my God."

Although this classmate spoke not a word of English when she arrived here at age ten--now she's sixteen--she's now as monolingual as most of her fellow citizens. Her Chinese has been boxed up and put away, or maybe it's just gone. She's my student because she still doesn't recognize many words on a page--though she knows them when they're pronounced; overall, her oral language is far superior. I wonder if, back in the orphanage, they ever taught her to read, or how much, but I would never ask. She's decided not to remember much about that previous life; it nags at her too much.

"I don't know when my real birthday is." Sometimes she volunteers things. Better to own the uncertainty than not, I suppose.

"If they took my DNA, could they find my parents?" And we work out what that would entail without too much fuss; it's such a vague thought. And not too much different, perhaps, from that of any other adopted kid, except that her questions will never have answers. Thank goodness for her therapy. And for kids who notice a teacher's pointed look and stop laughing and repeating, "What do you mean you don't know where you're from?" And for a new arrival who is willing to trade Chinese for English as they stand at the board and do geometry, whether her new friend's situation makes sense to her or not. Perhaps it will shake something loose. Maybe it will be good for them both, now that they've each arrived here by such different paths.