I think this tends to happen when people move away from their homeland and raise their kids elsewhere. Especially if your parents are committed to Americanizing. I’m not sure how else to understand them not teaching me so much basic stuff about the biggest holidays of my culture. Like New Years related things, for example. It makes me sad that I celebrated half of only some holidays.
Honestly maybe it’s because they were poor. I will ask them about this. Poverty probably changed what traditions they practiced.
If you don’t know the language (assuming it isn’t English), then you’ll never truly reconnect with your roots. At best, you’ll have an orientalist (or orientalist equivalent if you aren’t Asian) understanding of your heritage as seen through the eyes of Anglophones.
The only real path towards reconnecting with your roots is:
(Re)learn the language.
Talk to people in that language.
Consume social media in that language.
Read blogs and articles is that language.
Read books in that language.
Them’s the breaks.
I think I have to save this comment because you’ve given me a lot to think about as someone in this situation. I really need to learn to commit to the process, though.
I know a little of the language. I would feel so nice and warm and comfortable in my own skin if I knew it fluently.