My headline does not differ from what I said yesterday. I can relate to Karen in many ways. English is actually my fourth language. Hakka, Cantonese, and Mandarin are my other languages. When I came to Canada for high school I was labelled as ELL, and it has stayed with me ever since. Although I knew at the time that I could never shake off my foreign accent, I did make a conscious effort to sound more like a native speaker because I wanted to avoid standing out or being teased. But honestly, it's tiring and challenging to constantly adjust and keep track of my accent. That being said, I am still lucky to have some English proficiency through education compared to my parents. Neither of my parents speak English, and I remember people often looking at them with disdain and treating them as if they were "aliens."  Even some second-generation immigrants with similar ethnocultural backgrounds sometimes try to differentiate and distance themselves from those who resemble their first-generation immigrant parents. It is kind of sad but I guess they want to be seen as "true" Canadians or more intelligent than first-generation immigrants. If people really want to embrace multilingualism, it's not enough to just be tolerant or feel pressure to be "welcoming" or “friendly”. We should invest effort and time in building meaningful connections with people who look and speak differently than us, and in learning about their cultures and stories. Now, the "ELL" label doesn't bother me anymore. In fact, it shows that I have a unique ability to understand and bridge two different worlds. 就好似依家我打粵語中文你睇唔明 哈哈. So what’s the big deal when you hear me speaking with an accent?  - Lucas Y. Zhang