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Parenting with an Accent: How Immigrants Honor Their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for Their Children
A blend of on-the-ground reporting and personal anecdotes that weaves a tapestry of the immigrant experience, multicultural parenting, and identity in the US
Through her own stories and interviews with other immigrant families, award-winning journalist Masha Rumer paints a realistic and compassionate picture of what it’s like for immigrant parents raising a child in America while honoring their cultural identities. Parenting with an Accent speaks to immigrant and non-immigrant readers alike, incorporating a diverse collection of voices and experiences to provide an intimate look at the lives of many different immigrant families across the country.
With a compelling blend of empirical data, humor, and on-the-ground reportage, Rumer presents interviews with experts on various aspects of parenting as an immigrant, including the challenges of acculturation, bilingualism strategies, and childcare. She visits a children’s Amharic class at an Ethiopian church in New York, a California vegetable farm, a Persian immersion school, and more. Through these stories, she opens a window to a world of parenting unique to multicultural families. Immigrant readers will appreciate Rumer’s gentle message about the kind of ethnic and cultural ambivalence that is born of having roots planted in many different soils, while in these pages non-immigrants get a fly-on-the-wall view of the unique experiences of newcomers.
Deeply researched yet personal, Parenting with an Accent centers immigrants and their experiences in a new country—emphasizing how immigrants and their children remain an integral part of America’s story.
Through her own stories and interviews with other immigrant families, award-winning journalist Masha Rumer paints a realistic and compassionate picture of what it’s like for immigrant parents raising a child in America while honoring their cultural identities. Parenting with an Accent speaks to immigrant and non-immigrant readers alike, incorporating a diverse collection of voices and experiences to provide an intimate look at the lives of many different immigrant families across the country.
With a compelling blend of empirical data, humor, and on-the-ground reportage, Rumer presents interviews with experts on various aspects of parenting as an immigrant, including the challenges of acculturation, bilingualism strategies, and childcare. She visits a children’s Amharic class at an Ethiopian church in New York, a California vegetable farm, a Persian immersion school, and more. Through these stories, she opens a window to a world of parenting unique to multicultural families. Immigrant readers will appreciate Rumer’s gentle message about the kind of ethnic and cultural ambivalence that is born of having roots planted in many different soils, while in these pages non-immigrants get a fly-on-the-wall view of the unique experiences of newcomers.
Deeply researched yet personal, Parenting with an Accent centers immigrants and their experiences in a new country—emphasizing how immigrants and their children remain an integral part of America’s story.
- GenresNonfictionParenting
232 pages, Hardcover
Published November 30, 2021
27 people are currently reading
1094 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
July 19, 2022
As a second-generation American raised by parents who immigrated to the U.S. before I was born, I grew up confused by my racial and cultural identity. Where did I fit?
Masha Rumer's beautiful book speaks to that racial ambivalence, in this story about finding meaning and joy in where we come from, in order to embrace where we find ourselves. This is unputdownable; I devoured the entire thing in one sitting. I laughed and cried late into the night while thumbing through the pages, reading about the author's experiences growing up in the U.S., and her subsequent adventures raising her children.
What stuns me about this story is how much I learned about how deeply curiosity and cruelty is woven into the American immigrant experience. I felt connected to the author in several parts, especially when being taken through some of her experiences that mirror my own.
There's something about this book that has you walking away from it changed for the better. I've never read anything quite like it. Although I'm not a parent, I hope to one day be, and the advice provided on methods to encourage bilingualism in children (which is something I plan to do) is clearly communicated and well-researched.
In my case, learning about the author's journey also made me feel extremely empathetic to my parents. It made me sit and fully consider the hardships they must have also gone through, experiences that I'd expect look a lot like the examples Rumer shares in these very pages; the loss and confusion of being forced to leave an entire culture and way of life behind. The hardships of acclimating to a new language, lifestyle, and in many ways, a brand new world. 'Parenting with an Accent' made me reflect on my own upbringing, and the challenges anyone with an immigrant background is forced to face in modern-day America.
It also just made me think. Rumer explores so many layers in this story that touches on this country's incredibly complex - and often haunted - history with the unfamiliar. She sums it up best in this riveting quote from the text: "All I know is that, in spite of challenges and inequities, people keep flocking to America's shores, working, learning, loving and raising children here. And though immigrants are not the only part of this country's legacy, we are an integral one. Our voices deserve to be heard - even with an accent."
In short, I hope many, many people read this. Driven by engaging storytelling, Parenting with an Accent gives you an unfiltered understanding of what it really means to be an immigrant today.
*I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.*
Masha Rumer's beautiful book speaks to that racial ambivalence, in this story about finding meaning and joy in where we come from, in order to embrace where we find ourselves. This is unputdownable; I devoured the entire thing in one sitting. I laughed and cried late into the night while thumbing through the pages, reading about the author's experiences growing up in the U.S., and her subsequent adventures raising her children.
What stuns me about this story is how much I learned about how deeply curiosity and cruelty is woven into the American immigrant experience. I felt connected to the author in several parts, especially when being taken through some of her experiences that mirror my own.
There's something about this book that has you walking away from it changed for the better. I've never read anything quite like it. Although I'm not a parent, I hope to one day be, and the advice provided on methods to encourage bilingualism in children (which is something I plan to do) is clearly communicated and well-researched.
In my case, learning about the author's journey also made me feel extremely empathetic to my parents. It made me sit and fully consider the hardships they must have also gone through, experiences that I'd expect look a lot like the examples Rumer shares in these very pages; the loss and confusion of being forced to leave an entire culture and way of life behind. The hardships of acclimating to a new language, lifestyle, and in many ways, a brand new world. 'Parenting with an Accent' made me reflect on my own upbringing, and the challenges anyone with an immigrant background is forced to face in modern-day America.
It also just made me think. Rumer explores so many layers in this story that touches on this country's incredibly complex - and often haunted - history with the unfamiliar. She sums it up best in this riveting quote from the text: "All I know is that, in spite of challenges and inequities, people keep flocking to America's shores, working, learning, loving and raising children here. And though immigrants are not the only part of this country's legacy, we are an integral one. Our voices deserve to be heard - even with an accent."
In short, I hope many, many people read this. Driven by engaging storytelling, Parenting with an Accent gives you an unfiltered understanding of what it really means to be an immigrant today.
*I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.*
January 22, 2022
I really enjoyed this book. It was interesting reading the different things that immigrant parents try to think about and balance, things I've never had to consider. I loved the chapter on bilingualism. I appreciated the perspectives and enjoyed being a fly on the wall, listening to the experiences shared.
March 25, 2022
Fabulous book, with stories and challenges which resonate loudly with us an Indian family living in the United States with the occasional interesting idea thrown in. I would highly recommend to other bicultural or multicultural parents, raising children in the US.
December 27, 2023
I read this for a research paper I did and it was very informative and interesting!
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November 1, 2025“Do you know what a foreign accent is?
It’s a sign of bravery.“
It’s a sign of bravery.“
August 11, 2022
I read this book as a parent raising trilingual children, as a linguist (I have a Ph.D. in linguistics) and as a person who changed countries several times in her life and knows full well what it's like to feel like a foreigner.
I would wholeheartedly recommend this book not only to immigrant parents raising their kids bilingual but to anybody who wants to better understand the immigrant experience (the book is US- focused but the stories and the research are relevant anywhere).
I found that the book achieves a great balance of personal relatable storytelling, interviews, and the latest academic research on bilingualism.
An immigrant from the former Soviet Union, Rumer shares her own story as well as interviews people from most major US regions and covers many key language groups spoken in the US today. Her own history of her relationship with her language and culture is relatable to many immigrants - for a while embarrassed of it as a teen, then desperately trying to reconnect with it when becoming a parent - and is summed up in this passage:
"It really hit when I first held my baby in my arms. Suddenly, Russian seemed like the most intuitive way to speak to her. It felt like home. Whenever my daughter and I watched cartoons from my childhood together, my eyes welled up with tears. I wanted to dig up family recipes, to hum to her the lullabies my grandparents sang and their parents sang before them, to whisk her away into a familiar world, safe and secure, as seen through the eyes of a child."
But raising bilingual kids can be a bumpy ride, and Rumer doesn't sugarcoat it. Nevertheless, anyone who puts their heart and mind to it can do it, and Rumer cites latest research that supports that and most importantly why we should at least try. At the same time, she is careful to not promote a single type of immigrant journey but highlights that there are many different types of them and that it all comes down to your circumstances, your choices, and your personality.
"Parenting with an accent" is not only about language, but about a broader experience of being an immigrant and raising kids while trying to figure out the cultural and linguistic norms, and about how to help your kids and yourself feel at home in your new country while preserving your heritage culture and language.
In fact, I think this book should be required reading particularly for non-immigrants as it sheds light on many of the "mysterious" immigrant behaviours that might seem threatening to a monolingual US-born person who's never been outside of their home state. For instance, they might learn that when immigrants speak their home language in public it's not because they want to be rude or disrespectful. Masha Rumer has met such people herself:
“While learning English, you might speak in your native tongue with others from your country. But not everyone will approve. Like the girl in the lunch line who’ll remark, “I hate when they do that. My parents worked hard to bring them to America, and they just don’t wanna learn!” With an eye roll, her girlfriend will agree: “So disrespectful.””
In other words, if you meet that girl from the lunch line, or know another one like her, please recommend her this book.
I would wholeheartedly recommend this book not only to immigrant parents raising their kids bilingual but to anybody who wants to better understand the immigrant experience (the book is US- focused but the stories and the research are relevant anywhere).
I found that the book achieves a great balance of personal relatable storytelling, interviews, and the latest academic research on bilingualism.
An immigrant from the former Soviet Union, Rumer shares her own story as well as interviews people from most major US regions and covers many key language groups spoken in the US today. Her own history of her relationship with her language and culture is relatable to many immigrants - for a while embarrassed of it as a teen, then desperately trying to reconnect with it when becoming a parent - and is summed up in this passage:
"It really hit when I first held my baby in my arms. Suddenly, Russian seemed like the most intuitive way to speak to her. It felt like home. Whenever my daughter and I watched cartoons from my childhood together, my eyes welled up with tears. I wanted to dig up family recipes, to hum to her the lullabies my grandparents sang and their parents sang before them, to whisk her away into a familiar world, safe and secure, as seen through the eyes of a child."
But raising bilingual kids can be a bumpy ride, and Rumer doesn't sugarcoat it. Nevertheless, anyone who puts their heart and mind to it can do it, and Rumer cites latest research that supports that and most importantly why we should at least try. At the same time, she is careful to not promote a single type of immigrant journey but highlights that there are many different types of them and that it all comes down to your circumstances, your choices, and your personality.
"Parenting with an accent" is not only about language, but about a broader experience of being an immigrant and raising kids while trying to figure out the cultural and linguistic norms, and about how to help your kids and yourself feel at home in your new country while preserving your heritage culture and language.
In fact, I think this book should be required reading particularly for non-immigrants as it sheds light on many of the "mysterious" immigrant behaviours that might seem threatening to a monolingual US-born person who's never been outside of their home state. For instance, they might learn that when immigrants speak their home language in public it's not because they want to be rude or disrespectful. Masha Rumer has met such people herself:
“While learning English, you might speak in your native tongue with others from your country. But not everyone will approve. Like the girl in the lunch line who’ll remark, “I hate when they do that. My parents worked hard to bring them to America, and they just don’t wanna learn!” With an eye roll, her girlfriend will agree: “So disrespectful.””
In other words, if you meet that girl from the lunch line, or know another one like her, please recommend her this book.
July 20, 2022
A powerful, deeply necessary book! Masha Rumer writes, “Ever since setting out on my bilingualism journey, I keep being confronted by a stark reality: a living language is more than words and sentences strung together. It is intimately tied to what its speakers believe, how they worship, how they’re treated.”
Rumer sets out on an ambitious task - to explore bilingualism and multilingualism in the US through the sharing of her personal experiences, as well as through interviews with foreign born people who call the US our home; as we navigate the many complexities, including cultural and linguistic, of our chosen homeland. Dispelling myths about bilingualism, Rumer offers takeaways, synthesizing the many challenges and opportunities of being bilingual in the US.
Whether or not you have children, and regardless of whether you have an accent, Rumer’s book will have you nodding along, as well as deepening your understanding of the beautiful, diverse tapestry that makes US what it is.
Creatively and seamlessly weaving storytelling and reporting, Rumer also visits communities with bilingual missions - and shares their approach to inclusion, intersectionality and education. Inside the Arab Cultural and Community Center in California, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church outside New York City, and a preschool with a Persian immersion program in El Cerrito, we get an inside look at the joys and complexities of parsing and celebrating a hyphenated identity.
With nuance and depth, I enjoyed this book like a delicious, hot borscht, wanting more. Order your copy today!
Rumer sets out on an ambitious task - to explore bilingualism and multilingualism in the US through the sharing of her personal experiences, as well as through interviews with foreign born people who call the US our home; as we navigate the many complexities, including cultural and linguistic, of our chosen homeland. Dispelling myths about bilingualism, Rumer offers takeaways, synthesizing the many challenges and opportunities of being bilingual in the US.
Whether or not you have children, and regardless of whether you have an accent, Rumer’s book will have you nodding along, as well as deepening your understanding of the beautiful, diverse tapestry that makes US what it is.
Creatively and seamlessly weaving storytelling and reporting, Rumer also visits communities with bilingual missions - and shares their approach to inclusion, intersectionality and education. Inside the Arab Cultural and Community Center in California, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church outside New York City, and a preschool with a Persian immersion program in El Cerrito, we get an inside look at the joys and complexities of parsing and celebrating a hyphenated identity.
With nuance and depth, I enjoyed this book like a delicious, hot borscht, wanting more. Order your copy today!
June 13, 2023
I am not a parent, or foreign born. I was born in California, which some might consider a country in its own right, but that is a topic for another time. I picked up Parenting with an Accent because quite a few of my friends are parents, mostly mothers, and foreign born. I have heard them talk about the struggles they face, particularly when it comes to the choices they must make regarding how to talk, read and communicate with their children. But even if I didn’t have these friends, and I didn’t teach students, many of them the children of immigrants, Parenting with an Accent would still be useful. The author, Masha Rumer, writes that “knowing where we come from helps us understand where we are today”. Rumer is talking about immigrants, but the same could be said for all of us. Understanding where everyone in this vast country comes from enables us to understand where we are today as a country, as a community.
Don’t worry, this is not a dry survey or “how to manual”, instead it is a collection of anecdotes that make up the larger story of this country. Guiding us on this journey is Rumer, who wraps her own immigration story around interviews with real people from a wide range of backgrounds. There is hurt and humor in equal measure from a breakup based on beets, yes, the vegetable, to a grandfather following alongside a train as it speeds away with his family quite possibly forever. Whether or not you have an accent, or children, this book will enlighten and entertain you.
Don’t worry, this is not a dry survey or “how to manual”, instead it is a collection of anecdotes that make up the larger story of this country. Guiding us on this journey is Rumer, who wraps her own immigration story around interviews with real people from a wide range of backgrounds. There is hurt and humor in equal measure from a breakup based on beets, yes, the vegetable, to a grandfather following alongside a train as it speeds away with his family quite possibly forever. Whether or not you have an accent, or children, this book will enlighten and entertain you.
December 2, 2021
One of the saddest facts I learned from this book is that it only takes three generations to lose a language; that said, I love it that we keep trying to teach our kids the languages that we speak and that we find different ways to share and transmit our cultures. This book provides a wealth of information about how immigrant families navigate decisions around things like dating across cultures, kids names, daycare options, bilingual education, and so on. I particularly enjoyed the way the author anchors the research in the memoir stories and in her own culture, and yet the information in this book is very broadly sourced from interviews with experts and families across a great number of different cultures that make up the US today. This aspect of it also makes the book fun and useful for people of non-immigrant backgrounds: it's just a good source of information about the complex intermixtures of cultures in the contemporary US and it offers great ideas about parenting for people of any background.
September 12, 2022
Rumer has managed to thread the needle of writing an informative, yet deeply enjoyable and moving book. Parenting with an Accent is thoughtful, educational and funny book, which I'd recommend not just to immigrants, but to educators, policymakers, social workers and anyone who crosses paths with immigrants. There are important lessons in this book about the way our country views immigrants - as Rumer writes: "a mistrust of immigrants has always existed, and today is no exception."
When Rumer shares her immigration journey, she had me tearing up, while her anecdotes about adapting to American customs are at times laugh out loud funny. It's a memorable & touching read. Reading Parenting with an Accent, you don't feel like you're only listening to experts, nor do you feel like you're just reading the author's opinions. Rumer manages to pull together a wide variety of immigrant voices, combined with her own and numerous experts in the field, to paint a vivid and illuminating picture of the immigrant experience in America.
When Rumer shares her immigration journey, she had me tearing up, while her anecdotes about adapting to American customs are at times laugh out loud funny. It's a memorable & touching read. Reading Parenting with an Accent, you don't feel like you're only listening to experts, nor do you feel like you're just reading the author's opinions. Rumer manages to pull together a wide variety of immigrant voices, combined with her own and numerous experts in the field, to paint a vivid and illuminating picture of the immigrant experience in America.
September 5, 2023
I loved this book. My sister in law who is Colombian recommended it to me. And seeing as I'm an American married to an Irish man, who is living in America, I figured I'd give it a read. I'm surrounded by family members with accents and my brother and his Colombian wife speak primarily to my nephew and nieces in Spanish! And I've loved watching the way they navigate English and Spanish. ❤️ It's also been interesting to navigate a cross cultural marriage myself and all the intricacies and differences that come from that even though we speak the same primary language, albeit my husband has an accent...or I do depending on what country we find ourselves in. 😂
One of the quotes that really stuck out to me was, "do you know what a foreign accent is? It's a sign of bravery!" And I couldn't have said it better myself. ❤️
One of the quotes that really stuck out to me was, "do you know what a foreign accent is? It's a sign of bravery!" And I couldn't have said it better myself. ❤️
December 18, 2021
Masha Rumer gave me a window into a world of parenting so different from my own experience.
The research and anecdotes in this book made it very interesting. My students are living in this world, straddling two or more cultures, and I feel that I have a better understanding of the parenting decisions my families are going through. Very thought provoking.
“Despite the unique challenges immigrants confront, our aspirations are not that different from our native born peers. They are the essence of our shared humanity.”
The research and anecdotes in this book made it very interesting. My students are living in this world, straddling two or more cultures, and I feel that I have a better understanding of the parenting decisions my families are going through. Very thought provoking.
“Despite the unique challenges immigrants confront, our aspirations are not that different from our native born peers. They are the essence of our shared humanity.”
October 27, 2022
As a non-immigrant, this book helped me to understand what many of my friends and neighbors straddle each day. I appreciate that Masha has done extensive research, and not from behind a screen or book cover. She went out into the world, met with fellow immigrants, and recorded their experiences. The writing is a perfect braid of the author’s own experience, that of immigrants from around the world, and research based data on every point. As always, those who wanted to read a book on a certain subject are the best people to do so.
February 3, 2022
Outstanding storytelling, analysis, and social observations from Masha Rumer in this work.
My wife and I don't have kids, but the discussions about preserving culture and assimilating into the larger society were fascinating. Not being from an immigrant family myself, the stories Masha tells are eye-opening and provide valuable perspective. This book helps me to better understand my wife and her family who came from Mexico to the United States.
My wife and I don't have kids, but the discussions about preserving culture and assimilating into the larger society were fascinating. Not being from an immigrant family myself, the stories Masha tells are eye-opening and provide valuable perspective. This book helps me to better understand my wife and her family who came from Mexico to the United States.
February 7, 2022
I absolutely loved the book, and while I chose an easier route and listened to it rather then read it, I can’t begin to describe how many stories and experiences I identified with. Masha takes you on a journey of parenthood with an extra challenge of being an immigrant parent. Masha’s narration is incredibly thoughtful, smart, humorous, and thought provoking. I highly recommend this book whether you are immigrant or not, parent or not—you will truly enjoy it.
January 8, 2024
Although I am not an immigrant, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It is beautifully written, well-researched, and easy to read. The author's interviews with parents are fascinating and eye-opening. I highly recommend this book to any parent because it is informative, funny, and relatable. This book gave me a whole new perspective on what immigrant families experience and helped me understand the challenges and frustrations they encounter.
July 3, 2022
What an amazing book! Full of touching stories and a great deal of wisdom. The book deeply resonated with me as a parent. Whether you were born in the United States or elsewhere, you will find a lot of meaningful insights and fresh new perspectives in this meticulously researched and masterfully written book. Highly recommended for all parents!
May 5, 2023
Very relatable to an immigrant or first-generation parent. Since it's not a "how-to" type parenting book, it offers no solutions, which I found refreshing. It's comforting to know that others have similar life experiences and challenges. Easy read for non-fiction.
December 2, 2021
Well written, highly informative, well researched, enjoyable.
December 13, 2021
A perfect blend of research and story. Both of my parents are first-generation immigrants so reading this book felt like a book I should have read decades ago. I truly loved it.
December 21, 2021
An excellent, genuine overview of immigrant experiences (both parents and non-parents alike ) in America today.
February 7, 2022
A great read for a immigrant mom, especially at the lunar new year season.
Want to read
April 18, 2022A quick review shows that this would be a helpful book to immigrants in the US
December 8, 2022
I’m not sure I learned anything, but it was still good to read about other bicultural parenting journeys.
August 7, 2024
As a fellow ex-USSR immigrant woman and mom, I have never felt so understood reading a book. Although I don't live in the US, I couldn't help but nod and smile now and then feeling sentimental when Masha talked about summer train rides or chatting over cracking sunflower seeds (!); being in a complicated relationship with your homeland or how to keep the old and free up some space for the new. She has so skillfully combined evidence-based pieces and touching personal stories in this highly relatable book, that I find it hard to put it down. I appreciate the multidimensional approach to uncovering the whole essence of raising children in a different from one's childhood country and will keep recommending this book to everyone who is parenting with an accent <3
April 5, 2023
I thought it would be a book about emigration from the former Soviet Union. Instead it's a semi-interesting semi-scientific musing about all possible nationalities of the world who ended up in the United States. Too hurried, with a dash of politics, and I am glad it's a small book and I can move on.
April 14, 2023
Stereotypes different groups of parenting 1st generation kids.
It was very hard to follow and meandered immensely. There are as many exceptions as there are people. This was nice nice simplistic.
It was very hard to follow and meandered immensely. There are as many exceptions as there are people. This was nice nice simplistic.
January 1, 2022
Rumer generally does a good job balancing her personal musings and academic exploration, but this sometimes feels more like a podcast than a book.
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October 25, 2022dnf
October 11, 2023
I must say it's a pretty darn good book!
- Masha Rumer
- Masha Rumer
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews