The Language I Don’t Speak

Last week, I was talking to my friend when all of a sudden she said, “I thought you knew. I thought you knew. From the moment we kissed on the beach, I thought you knew!” I stared at her, confused, until I realized that once again I had missed ------- a movie reference. 

Growing up without a television meant I rarely understood these references at all. Over the years, I developed my theater act: smile or laugh and hope  the conversation would move on. But with time I learned just how essential pop culture is to people’s relationships. These references appear everywhere. I can be sitting in Spanish class, learning about grammar, when someone suddenly quotes a Disney movie I’ve never heard of. I can be walking down the stairs and hear two people laugh while imitating characters from a movie. I can sit across from a friend at lunch and have her express herself through lines from a show. For many, it's a casual phrase, but, for me, it is a verbal bear trap.  

What surprised me most was not just how often these references appear, but how they quietly organize social life. People bond over the movies they grew up with, the characters they loved, the lines they’ve memorized. Knowing certain references places you in one group; missing them leaves you outside another. In that sense, pop-culture has become a way people choose each other.  

For many, they are a way to connect. For me, they are a reminder of my alien past. 

When I first arrived at Newman, I hardly spoke English. Everything in American culture felt unfamiliar, so the references blended in with the rest. However, as I learned English and assimilated into American culture, the pop culture references were the enigmas that remained. I could speak words like everyone else but I still lacked the context. While pop culture was just entertainment for me, my classmates and teachers taught me that it was a collective memory. 

The references feel like a foreign language that I would never be able to speak. Perhaps one day I’ll catch up but maybe part of me prefers knowing that I haven’t fully become an American, that there is still a connection to Germany, my home country.  

And just as I finish typing this, someone nearby shouts, as if on cue, “May the Force be with you!”