I'll chip in a bit about myself and how I can be relatively comfortable in speaking and understanding BI and English to a high degree, I guess, if it can be construed that way.
I don't know if what I will say be useful to anyone, but it's just my $0.02 USD cents.
(Also, I was born in the United States to two Indonesian parents who have no intents on going back to Indonesia.)
Relatively young at my age, before 2nd grade here, I recall speaking English most of the time with my parents, though I did get exposed to my parents speaking BI with me on some occasions. There were times that I wanted to make sure that they understood what I meant because, although my father was here working for the consulate here in Houston, who is now retired, back in the early 2000s, I had a hard time relaying what I intended to say to them because he wasn’t brushed up in his English.
Then, in 2007, my mother, along with my sister and myself, went to Indonesia for about three months because of the summer break from grade school, and as well for my mother to check up on her parents (one of which, who sadly passed away about a month ago, due to natural causes at the age of 90).
At some point during the trip, I realized that I had to “take action” because my grandmother didn’t understand me, what with my broken BI and having to mix in some relatively complex English words with BI, it really didn’t help much until my mother became aware of what I was talking about and relayed it to her to where she comprehended what I said literally.
After arriving home in the States to go to 3rd grade, I started to pick up more of the Indonesian language easily, even if it was “kacau”, as my mother said back then. One could say, some people were pissed at me for being offensive to them at the time. It’s life.
I don’t know what caused me to learn BI to where it is now, to where some people like me, born in the Indonesian diaspora in Houston at the time, struggle to say BI easily without having to mix in English words to prove a point (I admit I still do this but only when I don’t understand the Indonesian word for what I meant, such as an object or item). There are some who cannot speak BI above an elementary level but can comprehend what BI speakers are saying, to a certain degree.
I guess, thinking about it now as I type onto here, what motivated me to gradually learn and adapt to BI was the fact that I wanted my parents to understand what I was saying without giving them too much of a hassle about having to mentally translate what I said in English to Indonesian whereas I could just say it in Indonesian and truthfully state what I mean. Plus, they were kinda living the American Dream with us, adapting to the ways of life here and sorta learn what other cultures are there, in the world. My parents made damn sure, that me and my sister would be comfortable in our culture and not be relegated to be that person who has no culture to associate with.
I implore anyone to not be afraid of being bi-lingual and shunning away your culture to be financially prosperous.
I apologize for sounding terse on here.