My cultural and linguistic heritageThe influence of our inherited cultural and linguistic heritage is perhaps less influential than the cultural and linguistic characteristics of the society in which we live. The societal forces of our micro-environments have a huge impact on who we are, how we view ourselves, and how we speak. My ancestors are of European descent, primarily German, Irish and English on both sides of my family. My mother's English ancestors are believed to have arrived in Virginia in the early 1600s. The remaining ancestors are believed to have immigrated several times before the 20th century. English has been the only language spoken in my family for many generations; the last German-speaking or Irish ancestors are unknown. My mother was born and raised in Northern Virginia, near Washington DC, but has lived in California for over three decades. His family remained in Virginia. My father is originally from California and spent his entire life in the Monterey/Salinas area. Neither of my parents have a detectable regional accent. I grew up in Salinas, California, a city in central California with a largely Hispanic population and agriculture as its primary industry. My childhood friends were somewhat racially and ethnically diverse, but I realize now that relatively few were Hispanic. This was not a conscious choice or overt discrimination on my or my parents' part, but rather a consequence of a tendency to fraternize with people from "my part of town", which was South Salinas. South Salinas is both the wealthiest and most Anglo-Saxon area of ​​Salinas, with residents largely from upper-middle-class households residing in older, established neighborhoods. The majority of Hispanics lived in East or North Salinas. The geographical environment...... middle of paper...... always present, the versatile word "like" is used wherever it can be used quickly. I never studied Spanish and only learned a few common Spanish words despite my upbringing in Salinas. I studied French in high school, but failed to master the language even modestly, and retained little of what I learned from French. I don't know why I chose to study French, but I think it was because it represented a refined culture and a world far removed from Salinas. The way we speak clearly reveals a lot about our lives, the immediate society and culture around us. From my examination of my family's cultural and linguistic heritage, it seems to me that the non-family environment and our peers have the greatest impact on our identities and our language acquisition. It is therefore not surprising that ancestral languages ​​are so quickly lost by subsequent generations..