My aunt, Regina Elmi, came to the United States from Somalia by way of Kenya in 1996. At that time, multilingualism was not encouraged for immigrant children like her. So she lost the ability to speak her native languages of Swahili and Somali.
As an adult, my aunt realized her biggest regret was this loss of language. So she works to bridge the gap between educators and families to help immigrant children embrace their culture, at home and in schools.