College SOP

Hi teachers,

I am applying to a doctoral program in speech perception and production and this is the first paragraph of my SOP. Could you give me any feedback? As I am from a different culture, it is hard to tell whether the story makes sense to native speakers. Thanks. Any comments or grammar correction are welcome!

My realization that each language has a unique spectrum begins with the unexpected encounter with Peter Pan. I could not(or did not?) recognize the Peter Pan [p??'t??'p??'n] that I enjoyed so much when I was little, because he was called [pi:??rpæ'n] in the U.S. The flap r and the lax vowel, which are absent in my language, turned the innocent and courageous boy into a conniving and sneaky man. It was then that I realized that the other side of the world is always tweaked and distorted into a kaleidoscope when seen through the filter of my native language. You may see the colors but you can not(or do not?) identify what you are looking at. This early experience made me ask the ultimate questions: What is language? Where does it come from and how does it shape our minds?