Hacker News Reader

Comment by Loughla | Hacker News Reader

I grew up very geek in a VERY rural area. I knew that there were places that I could be me, where I could be "country" me, and where I could be me "for adults". I learned that the me what I was, was also super unacceptable once I entered the world of higher education. I had to be "smart" me.

Then in my undergraduate degree, I learned about code switching in the context of Mexican-American children of immigrants. And it hit hard.

I was code-switching, but within dialects inside of one language instead of within languages. I also learned in that class that EVERY student who grew up rural, poor, minority, or anything other than middle- to upper-middle class white had extremely similar experiences. It was absolutely shocking to 20 year old me.

To your point - this article absolutely reads like people who just never learned how to navigate different groups.

View on HN

Code switching is completely natural to me, I would not know how to express myself with just one language to some people. What did you learn about it that impacted you the most?

Honestly, just that it existed and was a common feature of some peoples' lives.

I grew up feeling very outcast. I grew up in a town of less than 50, in a super poor, rural part of the US. My interests were outdoors related, but not guns and god like everyone around me. I was more interested in learning about natural systems and the interplay of wild plants and animals and humans in the world. I never 'fit in' anywhere. None of the school clubs, none of the classes, everywhere I went I felt that I had to 'be someone else'.

Then I went to college and learned that, for many people, they literally get to do that every day, and that there was a name for it! It felt validating that someone else in the world experienced what I experienced (even if it was whole-language based instead of just dialect/cultural norm based).