ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author aims to share a few signposts in his own language-learning journey, as well as some of the translingual moments that have, for his, shined a faint light into the complex experiences of people he have met along the way. “Foreign” languages are just that: foreign, not part of “us,” not that important, at best a nice “accomplishment” to have, like playing the piano. For a middle-class white man like the author's, in the case of monolingualist ideology, much of the catechism is conveyed through unspoken assumptions, woven throughout our educational, economic, and political systems. It’s regarded as natural that one person speaks only one language, and that one language defines a national identity.
