Guilt

A woman refers to the guilt she felt by choosing to communicate with her children only in Greek.

RES.: Tell us a little.
V.S.: Therefore I started with the… with the Greek school in the beginning. And I don’t remember… Most likely with the ‘Charity’ I must have started in the beginning. First at the ‘Charity’ a little, then at the Greek school. I was helping children to read when they performed theatre, I was reading the sketches and I was telling them to read their poems, when a teacher was away, I was going and acting as the subs… substitute. Because it’s not like anybody was… how to say… very few were those who were teachers per se. Most of them were women who had completed junior high school anyway, who had some education in Greece and they acted as teachers at the Greek school.
RES.: Good! Yes.There were many students at the school then?
V.S.: When my children were going at the time, there were about three hundred fifty children.
RES.: Wow! Three hundred fifty?
V.S.: Three hundred…
RES.: Four hundred fif…
V.S.: Three hundred fifty children. We had a great many… a great many children. Many of the then immigrants returned to Greece. Many left for other states.
RES.: So you’re talking about the ’70s decade.
V.S.: Of the ‘70s.
RES.: At the time there were many children.
V.S.: Yes, yes. Of the 70s. Needless to say that the older… my older children were reading much better than the third, they were writing much better, they were speaking much better. My children didn’t speak a word of English until they went to nursery school. Nothing. And then, when they went, I felt so bad because my little one -the oldest then- was speaking Greek to the teacher.
RES.: Oh! Yes.
V.S.: Because the small child couldn’t communicate and he was telling me “Mum she doesn’t understand” he says to me. I felt so sad that I started speaking to him in Greek-English. Greek-English, Greek-English, Greek-English I lost the… this sense that I knew I was speaking Greek or English. It’s possible that… in the course that… that… -because it happened to me, I’ve noticed this thing while I was in Greece that we heard the news at my brother-in-law’s house. And after a while I say “Well…” I say “Why are they telling the same news again… the same news?”. “Eh now…” he says to me “They’re telling them in Greek”. And I say “What were they saying before?”. He says to me “English”. And there I understood that the two languages have become automatic, but I lost control somewhat over there with what I was doing with the children, in order to help the children to progress… Which children now, the oldest one will hardly speak any Greek. He understands, he might read, he might write if he wants to, if required he’ll use it, but it’s very poor his… his Greek.
RES.: Is it because he’s married to a non-Greek?
V.S.: And he married a foreigner as well. Yes.
RES.: Here in Winnipeg or elsewhere?
V.S.: In Winnipeg, yes.
RES.: In Winnipeg, yes.