My object is a children's poem book by the popular Georgian author, Nodar Dumbadze. The pages are frayed and the cover is beginning to fall separate from the pages themselves, yet the creative drawings still retain vivid combinations of color. It isn't so much the way the book looks that makes it so special to me, but the amount of time I've had it. It is the first book I ever owned and it's been with me for almost my entire life. My mother bought this book for me when I was about 10 months old for a special holiday called Anaoba, a celebration made for those with my name. While we were living in Georgia, she dedicated herself to teaching me each poem. A Georgian children's poem is different from the English nursery rhymes that are taught here. They're much longer, much more humorous and use far more sophisticated language. My mother would spend time teaching me from the moment I began to talk and I'd happily recite them to guests. By the time I immigrated to the United States with my family, when I was four, I'd learned almost all of the poems in the book. Despite this, it was one of the only things I brought with me. A connection to my first language, to my first author. Overtime, I've forgotten the poems I knew by heart and my ability to read in Georgian comes with difficulties. But every time I see my mother’s handwritten message inside the hardcover of this book, I become proud of my first language and eager to retain as much as I can about it.

– Anna

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant