Battle of the tongues

B-i-r-r-r-d.
This was the first english word that I learned, the first thing I uttered. The memory still fresh in my mind. Although I was born in New york, I moved to Croatia at 6 months old and returned to NY when I was five. By the age of 6 I had the power of two languages resting on my tongue.
When I'm in a room filled with English speakers, I sometimes speak Croatian with my sister and I know that I have power. Their confused glances tell me so.
In Croatia our conversation in English gain glaces of awe and jealousy. Again I am in power.
The post colonial identity, the Minke's, Anzaldua's, and Hosu Kim's lack this sense of power in their mother tongue and their English. Instead they both represent shame. They're caught in a world of confusion, a battle of tongues, a winner never determined.
While Kim is practicing her Korean alphabet, she hears the ABC song in the back of her mind. Her tongue secretly thirsty for the English language. Secretly because she felt shame for preferring one language over the other, especially the new language. This constant feeling of trading one in for the other. She continuously mentions the taste of american food, "Our mother's memory of tongue indulged by and succumbing to M&M's, candy bars, Skippy peanut butter, powdered milk, caramel"(39). This food represents the lure of the English language, they'll trade in their mother tongue for a taste of it. We can see this in Minke who wrote only in Dutch and neglected his Javanese.
Yet for the post colonial identity, even this is disatisfying. They learn English, but all anyone can hear is their accent, "My accented tongue sticking out of its own will against my arduous efforts, too much foreign touch translated into untamable and uncivilized" (39). She goes on to say "Re-membering our tongue has been embodiment of shame, pain, violence" (39). Again it's as if Minke is speaking to us of the shame his Javanese has brought him. It is no longer a question of choosing one or the other, neither will do. What is created is an identity all its own, one of constant struggle and imbalance.
Like Anzaldua, Kim's article also seems to say that as long as we keep giving power to the English language, ours will always remain inferior. She does this through the Korean mother who gives up her child for adoption, for a better life, 'the American dream'. During the televised reunion of the mother and adopted daughter, it is said that "the birth mother came into being as a figure embodying personal shame and guilt where Korean national shame could easily be relegated" (44). All of the admiration that the Koreans have given to American has only brought to light their shame of self. This is all packed together and represented in their language. Kim says "Did you ever notice that I felt embarrased because of your tongue?" I'm "running from your impoverished tongue" (44).
For the post colonial identity there is no balance between their two languages. Neither have power, both have shame. They are always at battle. "My tongue always in between, my tongue always dreaming" (45).