A recent slightly stingy criticism from a friend, about using a foreign language as an aid to explain something to a weaker English speaker, sent me on a nostalgic thinking spree. In my first 17 years in the States, I spoke English only. From the moment my passport was stamped and green card was handed to me at the airport, I was an exclusively English speaking resident, part by personal choice and part by my mother’s stubborn refusal to speak to me in any other language, and she began as soon as my jet lag wore off and I woke up from my first NyQuil induced coma. This was the same mother who on the other side of the border, had no problem speaking to me in our native tongue, but not here, ever! (hard core Balkan women, it’s how we roll)

Arriving to America, among other new beginnings, also…