Felema Yemaneberhan grew up in Los Angeles, but throughout her childhood she was brought back to another home, in Eritrea, north of Ethiopia, a country traumatized by Italian colonization and Civil War. Before the age of 5, she only spoke Tigrinya, the language of her ancestral home, a place where her parents still anticipate returning. When we say mother tongue, what does it mean? ‘Mother Tongue’ merges the past and present, a sometimes invisible gift of identity, particularly when displaced in another land.