In my life I’ve seen so much discrimination towards my language and culture, and this happens in a lot of indigenous communities. People don’t understand the importance to having a language in your culture, I think that a lot of people in society make it seem like English is supposed to be everyones first language. This is not true.
Having a certain language in your culture brings a big sense of community and belonging to people. When people discriminate towards my language, the Anishnaabe language, I feel hurt. I ask myself why don’t people just learn to be accepting towards others?
I believe that this happens to many other cultures as well, diversity is huge and people still aren’t accepting of it. I wait for a time where everyone is accepted and can be who they want to be.
Do you feel the same?
I agree with you, Taryn. We need to continually work on building a society that is accepting of its diversity. What examples can you provide about language prejudice specifically? Have you experienced language prejudice within your community?