By Henry Xu
This Fall we will be publishing a series of spotlight articles about multilingual students and faculty at DU. These articles are based on interviews that Dr. Kamila Kinyon and a group of multilingual students conducted about interviewees’ lived experiences, including continuing connection to heritage languages, role as writers and teachers at DU, and thoughts about multilingual and multicultural identity. This project is funded by a Faculty Research Fund Grant awarded to Dr. Kinyon for 2023-25. We welcome this opportunity to celebrate DU’s multilingual community.
Introducing An Nguyen, a passionate pre-med student who wants to go to medical school in pursuit of becoming a dermatologist. She’s majoring in Biochemistry and minoring in Biological Science and Human Health Sciences and Systems. Outside of her professional and academic life, she wants to finish her education in the U.S. and move to a different country to live and explore other cultures. During her free time, she likes to play guitar, paint, and draw.
An was born and raised in Vietnam for almost 13 years. She moved to the U.S. with her father, and Colorado was their first stop. The power of multilingualism has opened doors for An in future opportunities and development. Her first language is Vietnamese. Her secondary languages are English and Chinese. She also speak several Vietnamese dialects.
During the interview, I was fascinated by her ability to switch from one language to another and accurately translate between Vietnamese, Chinese, and English. “It’s like I’m going in circles,” she said. Fluency wise, she’s 100% fluent in Vietnamese and 70% with English and Chinese. Vietnamese culture holds a great significance in An’s life: “Vietnamese is huge in terms of my culture and ethnic identity…It’s more than a language, and without it, then my identity will be gone.” She learned English in Vietnam. An was taught how to write, however not in integrated communication.
An’s story unfolds a unique challenge in coming to the U.S. She was considered a first generation immigrant student in high school and the only translator for her parents. In class, she freaked out because she couldn’t understand what the teacher was saying: “I’m very disappointed because all my eight years of learning English in Vietnam is nothing.” Despite language barriers, she was fortunate to have a wonderful teacher, and peers: “Social connections and networking are great. I feel like everyone here is friendly and it’s easy to develop friendships.” What stood out to her was high school geography class, where she could introduce Vietnamese cuisine, Vietnamese spring rolls and fish dipping sauce. Her classmates were skeptical. However, after they tried it, they really liked it.
As a college student, she reflects on her past experiences in coming to the U.S. and is grateful to have the opportunity to study at the University of Denver. She considers multilingualism a big advantage. She gets to meet people who have similar backgrounds and culture. In WRIT 1333, An was assigned to conduct an interview with other students. She reached out to other Vietnamese and Chinese students to participate. Communication was easy, however, one of the disadvantages was the level of language difficulty in certain areas like reading, writing, listening, or communication: “Writing in English is difficult because I struggled with grammar and sentence structure.” Another challenge she stumbled across was complex vocabulary: “As for my major, which is Biology and Chemistry, there’s certain scientific terminology that I need to understand, and it takes time. It became difficult to keep up the course load as well. When I take exams, sometimes the question can be confusing. However, professors are nice and willing to clarify it.”
Despite the challenges, she believes that DU has done a great job in supporting multilingual students. Without their effort, they wouldn’t have this interview. Thankfully, DU has the Writing Center to support writing research papers. She believes the university provides sufficient resources and services, such as language learning centers, exchange programs, and extracurriculars. All the students and professors made her feel welcomed in the DU community.
Here is her advice for other multilingual students: “Don’t be afraid to ask for help because we all need to communicate. Communication is crucial…to help your inner self connect with others and the outside world. Of course, there’s difficulty along the way. You will get through it no matter what. Be patient with yourself and don’t give up. With dedication and persistence, you will be the bright star…in the night sky.”