“I see. And what would you have liked to take instead?”

“I guess I would have probably liked to have taken political science.”

“It’s not too late,” John said. “You could still add and drop classes for another week.”

I laughed it off, but I made a mental note to think about what he had just said later.

Changing the topic, I asked, “So why are you a member of the Ukrainian Students’ Society?”

John leaned into the table and started talking with his hands more. “Well, for starters, I am Ukrainian, but it’s more than that … I went to Ukraine when I was in high school. My grandfather took me, and it was the first time he had returned to his homeland after he immigrated to Canada as a political refugee. Ukraine had just become independent.”

“So that trip made you think more about your connection to Ukraine?” I leaned my face into my hand as I perched my elbow on the sticky pub table.

“Something like that. I remember watching my grandfather cry when he was back in his village. He told me he never thought he would get to go back, that he would ever see an independent Ukraine. The country is young and growing. Clubs like ours are fun, but they’re also lifelines for Ukrainians abroad to keep culture, language, and kinship alive far from home.”

As I listened to John, I felt envy for his connection to his grandparents. “So do you speak Ukrainian then? I mean with your grandfather?”

“Yeah, I grew up speaking it with my parents, too.”

“Wow. But I guess you don’t use it beyond your family?”

“Well, I use it when I speak with other people who can speak Ukrainian. People say Ukrainian is a peasant language … to put us down. So many languages around the world are dying, cast aside by dominant languages and cultures.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Oh no, you didn’t. I guess I wanted to explain why it’s so important.”

I hesitated, and John waited for me to speak. “That’s so funny that you say that. I actually get it. I understand this obscure Chinese dialect. Nobody has ever heard of it.”

“What’s it called?”

“Hokkien … All my life, I saw it as a peasant dialect, too.”

“I bet more people speak it than you realize. Just because there may be fewer of you, doesn’t make it less valuable.”

“I never thought about that … I should be more careful. Honestly, I just got kind of tired of explaining to people what Hokkien is and why people don’t know about it, why it isn’t Mandarin or Cantonese.” I pushed the plate of nachos to the side of the table as the server came by.

“You don’t need to apologize for it.”

“I guess it does come across that way … I don’t know. I just have never really felt at home with this kind of stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t need a reminder that I’m Chinese. People treat me differently because of how I look. To be honest, you can blend in … You don’t have random people making negative assumptions about you based on how you look.”