When we were growing up in San Anto(nio) back in the 50s, our
parents didn't speak Spanish around us. The common belief was you'd have a
Spanish accent in your English if you learned both.
The truth about bilingualism is more complicated, depending
on your environment. But that's the reason for my Spanish not being totally
developed.
I do remember one Spanish lesson my mother gave me. I asked
her about a word I'd heard at the playground--chingazo. She promptly gave me
one across the face and ordered me to never use the word again. Which didn't
answer the question but did provide information as to the word's context.
I don't "blame" my parents for bringing us up that
way. To be a Mexican--as we called ourselves--to have dark complexions, to
speak Spanish in those times marked you for discrimination. It was Texas in the
50s, not that racism has disappeared.
Most of us in the family did learn Spanish, some better than
others. My oldest sister married a mexicano and gained fluency, for instance.
I learned Spanish on the school playground, on the Menchaca
Courts playground, and from friends. It included nearly every profane word in
the language. The grammar varied, with limited future tense and almost no
imperatives. Add tejano slang to the mix and it's a wonder I can speak at all.
I got little practice through my teen years. I was ashamed
to speak it, to admit I knew it, to learn more of it. I didn't realize the
shame came from societal oppression and wasn't of my making.
When I reached high school, rather than signing up for
Spanish, I chose French, joining one other Mexican in the class. We aced it for
three years, alongside a girl who had a French grandmother. In my third year,
the French teacher asked me to pronounce a word and then asked me to pronounce
it in Spanish, which I did. When I heard both versions sound the same, I
understood how my broken Spanish had helped me ace the French, not that I'm
tres fluent in it. More like, just un peu?
In Denver's Chicano Movement in the early 70s, so many
Chicanos around not understanding, much less speaking Spanish, surprised the
chingazos out of me. The rising nationalism valued fluency and I started
hablando like a tejano. That of course brought some social status. I ran with
it.
In time I tended to use Spanish more, like getting promoted
because I could order mexicano workers around better than lingually limited
supervisors. When I operated my advertising and graphics businesses, dealing directly
with Spanish speakers was a plus.
But when it involved raising my own kids, I came up with
fresh version of why I shouldn't speak Spanish around them. Mine sucked
grammatically, my vocabulary was meager, and I didn't want them growing up
speaking hodge-podge tejano. So I created my own stupid.
Prevailing educational bilingual studies presume that a
parent should always speak his primary language to his children. Since mine was
English, that would've backed up my not sharing Spanish with my children. I
don't agree with that anymore.
Had I spoken Spanish to them, they would've at least
acquired the accent in their Spanish. They would've heard that accent, used it
and could have improved on language acquisition through high school, with
friends and into college. I failed them.
In fact my Spanish was sufficient to get hired as a
bilingual paraprofessional assisting a bilingual teacher for four years. Which
led me to finishing my bachelor's degree and getting a bilingual teacher job,
despite gaps in my fluency.
For ten years I helped scores of mexicanitos and
salvadoreños learn to write and read Spanish. Yes, had my fluency been more
"correct" I would've helped them more. But what I had was sufficient.
Until a couple of chingada principals decided I didn't fit their regulated
norms.
A few years ago Revista
Iguana published my Spanish fable, "El Viaje de Clarisa," about a
girl ant whose struggles never end but never defeat her. Without the help of a
bilingual teacher friend and the editors of Iguana,
that story would not have been published.
In the last thirty years in this neighborhood called the
Northside, I've deliberately made friends with Spanish speakers on my block.
Today only four families remain, the other having been bought out and chingado-removed
to outlying areas. The few of us left use Spanish or switch back and forth as
if we were bilingual. Which I guess I am, in some pocho way.
One day I hope to write children's books in Spanish, without
having to write them in English first and depend on a publisher's translator.
Quién sabe? It could happen.
Currently I babysit our first grandchild who's three months
old. Two times a week I get to play Abuelo for six hours. And Nieto gets to
play Spanish learner. Calle 13 performs
our background music. I have children's books from my teaching days to read him
in Spanish. And I labor to speak only that for those hours.
Will Nieto become fluent with only 12% of his waking hours
in a Spanish environment? No sé. I assume he'll develop the ear, the accent,
some grammar and vocabulary. He'll need schooling, on top of whatever I can
share with him.
But I'll have done what I can, what I should've done with my
own kids, what I should've done for myself, what should've been done for me,
all the prior years. Y ya no hay verbüenza.
Aquí vamos, yo y el Nieto.
RudyG, a.k.a. pocho chingado, ex-bilingual-teacher,
part-time babysitter and student of español
If you
readers have related experiences you'd like to share here, even a reprint, send
them and I'll post them next week.
