Tales of the new country, part 1

The biggest adjustment people of my parents' generation have to make in the immigrant community is the transition from a lily-white country to the world's greatest ethnic salad. Not long after my family arrived in Canada, we heard a most curious story. The son of friends was playing basketball with a bunch of kids in the school playground. His game was not going well, and after a while he snapped, unleashing a string of expletives in Serbian.

A black kid approached him and asked, in flawless Serbian: "where are you from?"

The boy blinked, dumbstruck. "From Yugoslavia," he said.

"Where in Yugoslavia?"

"Sarajevo."

"Me too."

The point: you never know who's speaking your language. And besides, it's not "your" language. The language will do just fine without you. That's something to consider.