your mother tongue.

Never be ashamed of your native language

Say those beautiful

Phrases and words

Loud and proud.

Do not let anyone stop you from speaking

Let your voice be

Heard and recognized

Don't you dare let anybody make fun of your accent

Embrace the thickness

Don't ever lose grasp of it.

For it is one of the precious treasure

You could ever hold on to

After leaving your homeland

To start a new life in a foreign country

That offers you a whole lot of new opportunities.

Hold on to your mother tongue

As tight as you can

Because this new country you now live in

Will do its very best to change your identity

And oppress your culture.

So it be French or Spanish

Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese

Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo

Greek, Punjabi, Hindi, Sinhalese

Arabic, Vietnamese, Portuguese

German or Russian

And any other language there is in the world.

It has exquisite words that just cannot be simply translated into English

For it has far greater meaning behind it

It is very much well-written

Alluring to one's eye and

Spoken eloquently and gracefully

That the English language is not able to compare

To your admirably and enticing

Well-spoken mother tongue.

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Notes: I salute your bravery
For moving into a brand new place
And the willing to learn
A whole new language
Because it is not easy for all of us to do so.

This is for the immigrants and internationals who have travelled into Canada and they are constantly being bashed for their accent and their difficulty with learning the English language, the same people who mock them are the ones who have only spoken English all their lives. I personally think the willingness of learning a language so different with your mother tongue in order to improve your future is amazing and I admire each and everyone of you who do so. As someone who has been made fun of in previous years because I had this thick accent, you shouldn't let them make you feel less and do not let them try to think that your race and culture is lower than theirs, cause it is not.

Also, happy national poetry month :-)

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