Spanglish Life

Creditó de fotó tagxedo.com

As a kid I grew up learning Spanish as I spoke it. Looking back I probably learned as much as I did because it was the only way I’d be able to speak to my grandparents who looked after me for 12 hours every day while my mother was at work. I learned Spanish the hard way and what I mean by that is, I’d try to communicate with my grandma as a child and she’d laugh at my broken spanish.

This would normally discourage a child from ever trying to learn a second language but it only motivated me to be better. I would piece the Spanish together in my head before speaking, I would watch novelas and match emotion with each word they spoke, and asked my bilingual tia’s and tio’s for translation on any word I got stuck on. Learning Spanish was important to me because It was the only connection I had with my abuela, who is a second mother to me. I improved as I got older and by the time I was 10 years old I was able to hold a conversation in Spanish with an occasional stutter as I still got stuck on a few words.

My grandma would still laugh at me from time to time as I mixed up “pedo” with “puedo” but nonetheless it had improved a lot. Although my Spanish was improving as I got older, it stopped when I turned 17. My abuela suffered from a stroke and lost the ability to walk and speak, and my abuelo was suffering from dementia and he no longer recognized me.

This was heartbreaking as they were still alive but It felt like I already lost them. Communication with each of them became shorter and I began to realize that my spanish got worse. The holes in my Spanish grew bigger, and I refused to speak Spanish in front of others except my family. This soon changed as I entered my second year in college. I was surrounded by a  more diverse group of people, and in my Chicano Studies class I met people who spoke in full Spanglish sentences and didn’t apologize for it, I learned to love the way I spoke broken Spanish, and just started telling people “I speak Spanglish”. Speaking Spanish is something I’m proud of and will not apologize for it because it’s the way I speak too my abuela, and it’s my only connection left with her.

It’s easy to get embarrassed speaking broken Spanish in front of others especially when you come from a Spanish speaking family who will call you a “pocho” for doing so, and my perfect response for this word of disapproval was “yo soy Chicana”. Chicana, a perfect word to describe my Mexican American heritage, that I love and am very proud of. I still speak to my abuela every friday and even though she can’t respond back too me she still from time too time, laughs at my Spanglish.