High school: the letter, from a home in another language
In the student’s own voice: the letter itself is the introduction.
Fill in the blanks, cut what isn’t true of you, and send it the first week. Print two copies: one for the desk, one folded for the chair beside your child.
Dear ,
I’m , in your period class. My family writes to teachers at the start of the year instead of waiting for something to go wrong, and this year the letter is mine to write, in my second first language.
Here is the thing worth knowing about me before the gradebook knows anything: I live in two languages. At home we speak , and I cross between that world and this one every day before first period. I’m telling you because it’s the most educated thing about me (I do in a hallway what your language department teaches for credit) and because it explains a few things you might otherwise misread. If I pause before answering, I may be crossing, not stalling. If my essays think in a shape your rubric doesn’t expect, ask me about it before marking it down; there might be a whole rhetoric back there. And if you ever want the word for something in , I’m your person, and I’ll enjoy it.
How I operate: confused early, not the night before. Mistakes owned to your face, no story attached. Disagreement brought to you directly, once, respectfully. And in my family that directness costs something extra, because we are raised to hold teachers in high honor, so when I come to you with a hard thing, know that I climbed a little to get there.
About my parents, said plainly and with pride: their English is smaller than their minds. If you meet them at conferences, you are meeting people who ask sharper questions in than I ask in either language; please request the interpreter and find out. First contact on classwork should come to me; that’s our family’s plan, not their absence. Anything that needs them gets them fast, at . And one thing worth knowing: for years I translated this school for my family, and this year we’ve all agreed I get to just be the student. Thank you for helping that hold.
One more person this letter belongs to: if a para or aide shares your classroom, mine or anyone’s, pass it along. Some of them come from streets like mine and speak my other language better than the building knows. They do the most walking here and get the least mail; my family has decided our mail finds them.
Their encouragement will reach you from afar, all year: sometimes a note in two languages, sometimes food that needs no translation, always your name said well at our table, which in our community is worth more than you know.
Thanks in advance for the work. I know what a semester costs the person at the front of the room. I plan to be one of the reasons it’s worth it, in both my languages.
See you in class.
(Parent postscript, in our own hand, in , with translation:) Everything above is true, including the part where we stand behind it. We are at for anything that needs the older chairs. We are glad it is you.
For your file: the one-glance overview
This student: bilingual; pauses may be crossings, essay logic may be rhetoric, ask first · self-advocates directly, at real cultural cost; receive it well · no longer interprets for the family, by family decision. This family: first contact to the student · parents at , sharpest in , interpreter requested for conferences · encouragement arrives all year, in two languages, from afar. Silence is honor. The notes are coming, desk or no desk.
The test, from the loom: a bridge is strongest when it is anchored on both banks. These letters anchor your end in September: your language named with pride, your customs translated before they can be misread, your encouragement arriving on schedule from wherever you stand. Print two copies of each: one for the desk, one folded for the chair beside your child, who may turn out to be from home. What comes back across, by November, is a teacher who knows that the family they cannot always see is the one holding up their year.