Oh, FFS. I really don't understand how 'first language' has been treated as equivalent to 'only language in which you are presumed fluent' - I've marked plenty of semi-illiterate papers from students who spoke English as a first language and a bunch of fantastic, eloquent papers from students for whom English was a second or subsequent language. What other excuses will people come up with to protect the privilege of lazy, middle-class white kids against people who work harder than them?

Since you haven't posted a poem I'm going to be terribly cheeky and add one here (even though I can't seem to get the formatting right). It's a poem of Rita Wong's that I love and I think it's appropriate for the topic of the post.

write around the absence, she said, show
its existence this is
demonstrate the sound of
its contours my chinese tongue
how it whispering: nei tou
tastes gnaw ma? no
where tones can
its edges survive this
fall hard alphabet
on my stuttering tongue, how its tones &
pictograms get flattened out by the
steamroller of the english language,
live its etymology of
half-submerged assimilation
in the salty home of tramples budding
my mother tongue memory into sawdust
shallows stereotypes, regimented capitals
arrogant nouns & more nouns, punctuated
by subservient descriptors. grammar is the dust on the streets
waiting to be washed off by immigrant cleaners or blown into your eyes
by the wind. grammar is the invisible net in the air, holding your
words in place. grammar, like wealth, belongs in the hands of
the people who produce it.

(untitled poem from Rita Wong's book Monkeypuzzle)