Ironically, it was actually the adversity I faced when I first arrived in the US that, at first, made me more attached to my language. I remember just writing down the Chinese characters of my name just to kinda “show off” a bit, that I’m unique. I even learned the traditional characters to make it look “cooler”. I wrote it on my notebook covers and on assignments, right next to the “Pinyin name”. Even though I kinda forgot like basically all other characters (can read, can’t write, characters are hard, no time to practice lol).

I remember like sometime I’d write stuff in Pinyin for fun. Nobody in school can read it. Like a secret code.

Then over time, as I moved up in school, after I finally learned English. And also as you get older, kids tend to mature and are less racist. Then the scale shifts, suddenly, the emotional trauma I faced at home is worse than what I faced on the outside world. So now, even if I just hear a Cantonese song, that I actually like, and it still, it keeps remind me of my parents.

Like, you see. 99% of interactions in Cantonese are with my parents and older brother. they suck. so that feeling naturally is associated with the language.

For English, its only 50% bad, 50% good or at least “fine”, so I feel more negativity about Chinese languages. Even with Mandarin, which I don’t speak at home. I hear all their WeChat shit on loudspeakers. It reminds me of CCP. One Child Policy, I’m the 2nd child. So that’s why. So the Chinese languages are just “tainted” in my mind, subconsciously.

It’s complicated, hard to explain.

This was the main reason my mom’s side didn’t pass language down. Not even food! Just assimilate 🤷‍♂️ But they were peasants in a new country so best to make it work in the easiest way possible. It sounds like OP has it pretty rough 🙁