Bilingual

The struggle with language is real. Growing up learning two languages scrambles my brain to this day while thinking, speaking, and writing. Some people are flawless at transitioning between two languages when necessary. I practice between English and Spanish everyday but I don’t feel like I’m getting any better at communicating. I often stutter and jumble words and it almost encourages me not to speak. But it is only the result of being taught two languages at the same time at a young age. 

I didn’t have a choice; my parents are hispanic immigrants who only know how to speak in Spanish who had me in a community where the education system teaches children in English. My dad purchased a Spanish workbook, “Victoria” that he used to help me learn Spanish at three years old. It was essential for my father to make sure I could effectively communicate with my parents, relatives, and other Spanish speaking individuals I may encounter in the future. However, a common misconception about Spanish is that it’s the same in all Hispanic countries (Spanish-speaking countries). Each type of Spanish has their own type of Spanish and they call it “Salvadorian Spanish” (the Spanish I grew up adapting to), “Mexican Spanish”, or “Puerto Rican Spanish” and so on. This is because each hispanic country has developed its own lingo and slang that others who speak the same basis of the Spanish language may not be able to understand. So when I was sent out to preschool and was surrounded predominantly  by other three year old Mexican children, I picked up their common “wey” slang and brought it home and stunned my parents. 

Despite the few endeavors, growing up in a mostly hispanic community has given me so much gratitude that I can speak to many people in two languages. Not only do I help my parents translate documents, but I can read signs and translate menus for strangers. Now, I may be able to vocalize these languages efficiently to some extent but understanding? Not my strongest suit. I was born with microtia, a congenital disease that limits the development of the ear during the first few weeks of development. I grew up with partial hearing in my right ear but by the age of eleven, I lost complete hearing in my right ear. Ever since, I’ve been hard-of-hearing and solely depend on my left ear to understand people. Because of this, I limit myself from talking to people in fear of burdening them of repeating themselves or speaking up.  It takes patience to communicate with me and it takes careful and clear enunciation of words for me to understand any language. I attempt everyday to get better at listening to people speak and use cues to infer what someone says if I don’t catch it. But, I never seem to get better and I fear eventually my limited form of being able to understand people and their words might diminish. I never took the chance to learn ASL, the form of communication with gestures most commonly used amongst people who can’t hear or speak. Although no one close to me knows ASL, maybe one day someone, as well as myself, may come around to it.

For generations, my family has only been able to speak Spanish. It started with my older sister, when she immigrated here and took on becoming fluent in English. Soon after I was the second one and my younger sister the third. Being able to communicate and understand in both languages is beautiful and I hope that my future children will do so too. If I had to learn another language, it would be ASL because I believe that specific community needs more people to understand them and as humans we should all be able to communicate through our languages.