How to write a college essay about your family's language

TTestimony in the Harvard admissions trial described an admitted student whose essay about her parents' language, Vietnamese, told readers where she came from and how her mind works in the same paragraphs. It was an essay about her family and an essay about an idea, and neither half could be removed without the other collapsing. Readers in Stanford's admissions office prized that combination, and they rarely saw it. Students who grew up between two languages tend to treat the second one as background, a line in the activities list or a warm detail about a grandmother, and the most intellectually interesting thing in their lives never reaches the page. The ones who do write about it usually choose the wrong half of the subject.