Why Spanish?
Growing up in a predominantly Hispanic family, you tend never to be questioned about your linguistic abilities. In fact, you are praised for your ability to learn a second language to be able to communicate with them. This all changed as soon as I entered high school. I went to a high school where everyone who put down in their application that they were Hispanic or from a Hispanic background was placed into Spanish. My principal let us know that the reason behind this was that he wanted to educate us more about our Hispanic background. Entering that classroom was the first environment where I was questioned about my linguistic ability. “Why Spanish? Why not learn a new language?” my classmate asked. To be completely honest, I’d never been asked something like this before, so I simply responded with, “Why not?” The conversation ended there. These questions tended to come from mainly non-Hispanic classmates who “wanted to learn a new language.” Looking back now, I wish I would have given her a real response, but rather I froze and felt the need to deflect the question while defending myself. I constantly felt the need to protect myself because questions like these suggested that my language wasn’t important enough to continue studying. “So why Spanish?” another classmate insisted I give a real response. My body began to tense up as the hair from my arms rose. I once more deflected the question and said, “Why not?”
A very small percentage of my class were Hispanics that were born in their native country. I happened to be one of them. I was born in Peru and came to America at just a few months old. My parents brought me here to live a better life, to be able to live freely and have access to freedom of speech – something that is prohibited in my homeland. Opinions are not to be shared, unless it is in agreement with what is in place, or you are in danger of facing the repercussions. If this was one of the reasons my parents brought me here, why did I constantly feel the need to protect where I came from? I thought I was allowed freedom of speech regardless of what I may say or what language I may speak. Throughout the time I have lived in America, I have realized it’s freedom of speech as long as you speak their language. I say this because my parents would constantly come home stressed from their job. I would watch as they confided in each other about their fears of losing their job. My mother would cry constantly in my father’s arms and it felt like we were all drowning with her. My parents have faced constant discrimination because of the obvious language barrier; it prohibited them from protecting themselves. My earliest memories were of my parents attempting to teach me English. Picture this: your mom pulls you aside with tears filled in her eyes, stressed from her own problems attempting to teach you some words in a language she has no experience with. My mother would constantly remind me that I needed to be strong and persistent in everything that I learned, so I would never have to face what she and my father have. This holds the truth as to why I constantly felt the need to deflect the question, “Why Spanish?” I never wanted to be placed in a position that my parents tried so hard to protect me from.
Around the age of 12, I was in the sixth grade struggling tremendously with English Literature. One day as I turned in my exam, my teacher whispered to me that she would need to see me after class and that it would be best that I stayed behind. As I sat back in my chair, my mind roamed through various situations that could be happening. Of course, it roamed through the worst situations possible. Was I being accused of cheating? Was she holding me back to have a discussion with my parents? Did I forget to complete a big assignment? I continued to brainstorm what she could possibly want to talk about with me. I sat there anxiously as one of my legs began to shake up and down. As everyone left the classroom, she finally approached me and asked me the big question. She said, “Have you ever been placed in ESL prior to this class?" Let me explain! ESL classes were designed to teach courses to students who learned English as their second language. As I slowly nodded, she began to let out a sigh and continued to tell me how my parents made a massive mistake by allowing me to learn Spanish before English because they “purposely” set me back academically for their own benefit. As I stood in front of her I began to feel like I was Rapunzel hearing the lies her evil stepmother gave her in order to turn on her family. In some ways, my teacher felt like the evil stepmother trying to convince me that my parents didn’t care about me. That they damaged my academic “success” by never being able to speak English. My teacher went on to tell me that because of them I would never progress like the rest of my class and that I might always be behind. I won’t lie when I say I was hurt. I was confused why someone may want to put me against my family over learning a language.
Thinking back to my first time being questioned “Why Spanish,” on why I chose to further my knowledge in the language, I would say I was afraid to reply. I wasn’t sure if they would understand what I’ve gone through as a Latino, my struggles, my fears of never being accepted because of the language I once spoke often. I chose to continue to learn Spanish because it is who I am. It is who I’ve always known myself to be. I have always held the language as well as my heritage very close to me because all my family knew was Spanish, and I would never fault them for that. The language is what I grew up with and that was grafted onto me. Here’s what I mean by graft: growing up, my mom would always tell me that I needed to continue to learn Spanish because that would be the only way of communication between us. In other words, similar to a plant, language was embedded into my brain. I don’t want people to take this as my mother forced a language onto me. Rather she allowed me to explore another language that connected the both of us and allowed me to grow up bilingual as well. I would even go on to say that the language brought me closer to my mother. It allowed us to hold that close connection because of the language barrier she faced. I wanted to protect her like she always has for me. To this day my mother knows very little about English, but she tries here and there, and I always encourage her to try rather than shame her for not knowing.
As I finished my first year of high school I was placed into AP Spanish. At this time is when the questions seemed to get progressively worse. “If you are Hispanic and aren’t fluent in Spanish yet, why don’t you just stick to English instead of giving yourself problems?” my close friend questioned. As you can imagine, I was more than offended by her question. I felt the need to defend my linguistic abilities once again because I felt like a transgression was just committed against me, attacking my family, and my culture at the same time. I felt as though I let down my family because I wasn’t fluent in the language that they gave to me. I proceeded to tell her that learning a language is a path with various sized obstacles that you will continually have to overcome regardless of if it was your first language or not. I truly believe that learning a language is a progression that you only get better at but are never able to perfect fully. Learning a language will make you feel like you’re training for the Olympics because you are constantly learning to progress and hurdle through every obstacle put in front of you. Regardless, even if I took her advice to not further my knowledge in learning Spanish, I don’t think there would be any fissures present. Spanish and I have a close-knit relationship. To some extent, I could even say that Spanish and I grew up together. It is all we both knew of, and it is something that we hold in connection to my mother. It’s like growing up with your own dog. No matter where you may go or how far you may have gone from them, it always seems to find a way back to you.
“Why continue to learn a language that you’ll never need in this country?” a stranger questioned. Out of the questions presented to me, I think this one was the question that upset me the most. It upsets me because it pushes away the fact that the Spanish language has allowed me to not only communicate with my family but help those around me who also only know Spanish. “Why continue learning a language I’ll never need?,” you may ask. Well, my response to that is that Spanish is a very powerful language that is used in various countries and should be used more often in America. Spanish should be known to be a worldwide language because of the large population of those who live in America who know or are fluent in the language. So to answer this question, I choose to further learn this language because it is what I grew up with. Thelanguage has become a part of my life that I cannot part with. I cannot let go of a language that has felt like home to me for as long as I can remember. Giving up the language feels like I’mgiving a piece of me away, a piece of my history. This is why I choose to further my knowledge of Spanish: to grow and to progress parts of me that were once shut down.