East Midlands Oral History Archive

Preserving culture and identity

16 Completely different languages

A man from Lithuania, whose wife is Estonian, explains how his sons came to learn a little Estonian and Lithuanian as well as English.

17 That sense of feeling homesick

A woman from East Africa talks about her attitude to learning English. She explains how she feels that her skin colour will always set her apart.

18 Mother tongue

A woman from East Africa talks about her love of western clothes and how she became 'westernised' but also remained connected to her culture. She explains why she feels her children need to be able to speak in their mother tongue as well as English.

19 You clung to your group

A woman, originally from Latvia, talks about the pressure she felt to assimilate and how encouraged her children to know about Latvia. This interview was recorded in the 1980s when the USSR still controlled Latvia.

20 I couldn't hold my identity the way I wanted to

A woman from Ireland explains that she felt she would lose her identity if she assimilated into the host culture.

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