When I was a little girl we were taught not to “talk Briar” (Briar is a regional word for ourselves, what most people call “Hillbillies”) and we were supposed to use “proper English” at school. As an adult I am glad to have had the opportunity to learn how to speak and write English in a way that I am understood by people anywhere in the world, and I use that every day in my job. But I do not share the disdain for words like “ain’t” which has been part of the English language for a very long time and surely qualify as a “real word”. It strikes me that the perception of a dialect gets all caught up in people’s prejudices about the socioeconomic group who speak it.

I know some people look down at “Tex-Mex” or “Spanglish” but for me it is just the evolution of language and culture. Ask my in-laws in Mexico, who have no particular desire to speak English or anything like it, and have never travelled anywhere English is spoken. They eat Nachos and Jotdogs, and say “parquear el carro” (along with a host of other Spanglish words). Yes, they know & understand “estacionar el coche.” They choose not to say that. For what reason? I don’t know, but I respect their choice, and I know that is how language evolves. All languages are always changing.

The key for me is that SOME bilingual people do not have a firm handle on one of their languages (the minority language) and this does cause difficulty for them when they try to communicate in it. However, this is because they did not get enough opportunities to completely learn the minority language, not because mixing is inevitable or unavoidable. Just from my own observation I really think this has a lot to do with education levels in general. Parents who are more educated are better able to arrange for their children to have continuing advanced-level inputs in the minority language as the kids grow older and the school system is pushing the majority language only. All I have to do is listen to my sister-in-law struggle to explain the difference between a carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore to her son, because she never got that far in school. She speaks only Spanish, but she just does not know how to say these things. There is a world of vocabulary in Spanish that my nephew is not hearing as he’s growing. My stepdaughter invents the word “chitear” because she is not hearing anyone in school saying the Spanish word for “cheating” and it is not something that happens much at home. My husband and I are intentional about encouraging “full-on” Spanish but not everyone is. It’s a real struggle because my stepkids’ mom actually speaks to them in incorrect English rather than in Spanish, and English is being pushed in the public schools.

When people look down at Tex-Mex I think that is what they are talking about. If a child doesn’t have somebody at home able or willing to keep the minority language advancing and growing, it withers. Unfortunately even in our own family, some think they need to push English with their children, not understanding how to raise them bilingual or how it would benefit them.

Maybe the teacher was trying to express that they do provide a model of Castilian or European Spanish to the children. I would agree those words are probably not going to be something kids would hear much on the radio or around town. But I would really question the wisdom of prohibiting “Tex-Mex” in the school entirely. Back home in Ohio my father went to Kindergarten in 1945 speaking no English. These people had been in the USA since the 1830′s continuing to speak a dialect of German (Plattdeutsch) which has almost disappeared in Germany itself today. When WWII was ending the community realized their feelings of pride and support about Hitler, based on their reading only German newspapers, had been wrong. They decided to push English with their children. When he started school my dad got his knuckles rapped with a ruler for every word of German a teacher heard — including on the playground. At home his mother would literally tell something to one of the older sisters and have them translate into English to the younger children. My father really lost his German. It was deliberately and very effectively wiped out in one generation along with most other aspects of a special, unique sub-culture of America. It makes me cringe when I hear someone tell a child “no eres mexicano, eres americano”. But I know it can be difficult for the adults to understand when they struggle with the prejudice against immigrants every day. We just have to keep working to let people know their children learn languages differently than adults, they CAN be bilingual and there are so many benefits.

Kudos to you Suzanne for teaching your daughter to respect ALL types of different peoples’ cultures!

I do hope none of our children are ever exposed to prejudice remarks due to their language, dialect or accent.

I hope you and Sabrina find the right school for your needs!

Tracy-whats amazing is that children know with whom to speak what language or dialect etc etc… language it totally contextualized in my opinion.