By Daniyah Yaqoob
From suppressed accents, Westernized takes on traditional outfits, cultural foods only eaten at home and other cultural modifications, there are various ways that some students from ethnic households seek to fit into Western ideologies.
Students at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) from ethnic households and abroad may struggle to find a balance between their cultural identities and external pressures they must adhere to as part of Canada’s general population. For some, this results in a not-so-simple solution: code-switching.
The term “code-switching” was coined in the 1950s by linguist Einar Haugen—though its origin is largely contested due to the interdisciplinary nature of the term—and refers to someone who moves between languages and dialects based on who they are surrounded by. Code-switching is done almost universally as people may speak casually with friends but their vocabulary and intonation change when speaking to someone in a position of authority.
Substantial research on the topic particularly analyzed how African-Americans are forced to shift from African American Vernacular English to “standard English” because the former was considered to be “a sign of lower socioeconomic status and a lack of formal education.”
Benedicte Mundundu, a second-year public health student, comes from a Congolese background and was born and raised in Toronto’s Regent Park. Having grown up in a household speaking Lingala, she is all too familiar with having to adjust her vocabulary and tone to fit in.
When she enters professional settings, she said various traits of hers change. Mundundu’s voice takes on a higher pitch, she begins to excessively smile and dresses differently—even the way she walks changes.
“I’m doing it to please others so they could just accept me into their society,” said Mundundu. “It’s wrong, I know. But at the same time, that’s what we need to do to get forward in society.”
It’s not a dilemma that Mundundu faces alone. For many TMU students born and raised immersed in one culture and forced into another, code-switching feels like a necessary step to take. In the midst of the act, the question of their identity comes to focus, as they ask themselves which of the personalities they put on is their true self and how far they’re willing to change who they are to be accepted.
“I don’t want people to feel like they need to change themselves for other people”
Within psychology, the term “code-switching” covers a wider breadth, as it refers to the changes people make in their behaviour, appearance and expression as well as speech. At its core, according to an article in Harvard Business Review, is often the desire to gratify someone else’s comfort “in exchange for fair treatment, quality service, and employment opportunities.”
Sometimes, the process of this adjustment isn’t even a conscious choice.
Ramiyah Davidson is a first-year language and intercultural relations student who was born and raised in Grenada, a country in the Caribbean. She grew up speaking Grenadian Creole—a language she said people refer to as “broken English.”
Even back home in Grenada, Davidson found herself code-switching. Her father, who is from the countryside, often spoke Grenadian Creole. When she was around his side of the family, she followed suit. But where she grew up—in the city of St. George’s with her maternal family members—she would speak standard English at school or with tourists.
“My [maternal] grandma would always correct me to speak in English [when she spoke Grenadian Creole] and called it ‘proper English’ or the ‘Queen’s English,’” she recalled.
When Davidson was 12, she moved to Scarborough, Ont. Here, people were constantly surprised by how good her English was—and yet, she was bullied for her accent.
“I started speaking less,” she said. “I didn’t feel as comfortable or confident speaking.”
A heavy realization for her came in 2020, as Davidson—alongside millions around the globe—went into quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While isolated, she watched back videos of herself, noting how her Creole accent had started to slip away when she was around her peers and how different her voice sounded than when she spoke at home.
“I felt like I lost a significant part of myself,” Davidson said.
“Other than my name and the way I look, the other thing that people always notice about someone is their voice. The way they speak, the way they carry themselves. And by changing that part of me, I wasn’t being authentic to myself, to my identity,” she continued.
“I’m currently dealing with a self-identity crisis. I’ve lost who I am”
According to Pew Research, 40 per cent of Black adults in the United States feel the need to code-switch when they are around people of different ethnic backgrounds. The same percentage applied to Hispanic adults—which includes people who don’t identify as Black or white.
A 2021 study in Affective Science found that people who code-switch are also always mentalizing—or considering how others are thinking or perceiving them. It also reported that people who engage in code-switching run the risk of undergoing a “stereotype threat” or reinforcing negative perceptions about their community, causing them to constantly self-regulate to avoid the threat.
The simultaneous task of mentalizing and code-switching can become exhausting for those who do it often.
“I feel it takes way more of my energy than anything else,” Davidson said. “Not only does it take a toll on my energy, I also get annoyed with myself.”
In Mundundu’s experience, code-switching is something she’d seen her parents do. Oftentimes, in part due to their worries about how they and their family would be perceived in Canada.
“My mom works in a school district and she has Congolese friends, so they [engage] on their own. But when she talks to the principal or to other colleagues, she has a certain way she talks, walks and acts. It’s very specific,” she said.
She felt her parents didn’t focus on preserving Congolese culture in their household while growing up and attributed it perhaps to the negative connotations that Congo and the Lingala language gets. Mundundu recalled words like “dirty” and “ghetto” being used to perceive it.
Mundundu went out of her way to reconnect with her roots by learning her native language and cultural history while considering it an essential part of herself. But still, even she hides her background sometimes—regrettably, she said—to avoid those negative perceptions.
She said this constant code-switching and having seen her parents do the same has impacted her psychologically.
“I’m currently dealing with a self-identity crisis. I’ve lost who I am,” she said. “Code-switching is deeper than people think it is. I faked a personality and I don’t even know where it comes from.”
“Not only does it take a toll on my energy, I also get annoyed with myself”
Still, Davidson and Mundundu are always doing their best to reconnect with their cultures and most importantly, themselves.
When she visited Grenada for the first time since moving to Canada, Davidson’s friends immediately pointed out her changed accent. She said this impacted her because since she moved away, she began to love her accent more.
Realizing that she had unconsciously “watered down” her accent, Davidson now actively works to preserve it. She also found poetry was a way to connect with her authentic voice, through the use of idioms and parables that people “back home” generally converse in.
“I don’t want people to feel like they need to change themselves for other people,” she said.
Despite all of its negative consequences, Mundundu recognized the unfortunate benefits that code-switching can have on increasing opportunities in Western countries. But even that points to a larger issue about who Canadian society favours, she said.
“We just want to live in a community where everybody can be themselves and get skills together without worrying, ‘Will the way I talk, the way I act affect that,’” she said.
According to Davidson, people are only truly themselves when they are with themselves, at least in her own experience. However, to show more authentic parts of their identity to the world—to be unapologetic in it—society has to be willing to learn and engage.
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