When I watched Ana and Roxana’s interview with Jorge Ramos of Univision last week, I was struck by an irony. Roxana spoke about the fact that the Latino community used to be all for assimilation, thus interested in teaching their kids to be as American as possible, which meant speaking English only (or at least more than Spanish). As evidenced by the growing numbers of SpanglishBaby supporters and the flurry of national conversation about bilingualism, this attitude is changing. The irony is that as the previous generation’s fear of acting or speaking like a Latino is on its way out, white culture has adopted that fear in reverse.

By that, I mean that some whites are now even more hateful toward Latino immigrants and their children than they were before this minority had any chance of becoming the majority. Although there are many non-Hispanic Americans like myself, who are interested in and passionate about giving our children a multicultural and multilingual upbringing, a huge demographic segment still resists the influx of Latinos to this country. Because it’s become harder for these people to avoid all things Latino (por ejemplo: “Press 1 for English, para español marque 2”), they are buckling down and holding tight to somewhat ridiculous representations of white America.

Since when have we cared if road signs or bathroom signs are written in both Spanish and English? Are people truly inconvenienced by extra text that makes no sense to them?

Why do some people get frustrated that their electronics instruction manual is translated into Spanish? That inclusion is just good business sense on the part of the manufacturer.

I admitted in a previous post that the prevalence of Spanish is also difficult for me, even if I understand the words. Yet, I’m not complaining about its availability for those who need it. In fact, I’d rather have warning signs and instructions written in Spanish than endure the consequences of people not following them because they can’t read English. To me, constant visual reminders of how many people in our country would rather read the Spanish part of the sign causes me to pause and be grateful for living in a place where people can thrive (not just get by) even when they do not speak the majority language.

In a time of great change, there will always be backlash. Fears are natural, and both Latinos and whites have felt this particular one – that their comfort zone is slipping away. Because we’ve both felt it, though, we should be more capable of understanding why the other group needs some reminders of home. I can only hope that this culture war inspires people to be more flexible, and especially causes whites to finally see the difference between cultural dominance and the reality of the “melting pot” we claim we have always had. Are we ready for the fact that some people will never mix in that pot, and therefore be  ready to accommodate everyone?

{Photo by incolor-inc}

Before I share “Facundo the Great” with you, let me tell you a little about StoryCorps – because what they do is pretty amazing. StoryCorps is an independent non-profit and since 2003 they have been collecting true stories, oral histories, from Americans of all backgrounds. The stories are recorded during interviews, and each participant (80,000 so far!) receives a free CD to keep and pass down to future generations. Each of these stories is also preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and many are broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition.

What is the point of recording these stories? StoryCorps explains, “We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, strengthen and build the connections between people, teach the value of listening, and weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that every life matters. At the same time, we will create an invaluable archive of American voices and wisdom for future generations.”

I’ve known about this project for a few years and really love it. When I listen to the stories, I have a tendency to become completely absorbed in them because the recordings are so intimate and special each in their own way.

This one I’m going to share with you was animated and while it talks about the very serious topic of how Latinos were once forced to Anglicize their names here in the United States, it turns out to be really humorous as well. The story is about Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez who was “raised in a small farming community in southern California in the 1950s. As was common practice at that time, teachers at his local elementary school Anglicized the Mexican American students’ names. Here, Chunky remembers a new classmate who proved to be the exception to the rule.”

StoryCorps is looking to create their first full-length animation special for TV – If you want to help make that happen, you can check out their Kickstarter page.

In the meantime, you can find many more stories on StoryCorps.org, or perhaps you or a family member have a story to tell? (Maybe your parents or your abuela?) Find out how you can be a part of the project.

What story would you tell?

Photo by visualpanic

When I meet new people, I often try to slip into the conversation that I’m Mexican-American. You can’t tell by looking at me (I’m the whitey-whitest in a family of fairly white Mexicans) and you can’t tell by talking with me because my Spanish is terrible. I love my culture and I’m so proud to be Latina, but I often feel like a fraud because I can’t really speak the language.

The fact that I’m not bilingual is one of the biggest disappointments and frustrations in my life. My parents are fluent Spanish and English speakers, but they only spoke English to me and my brothers and sister. I really think for someone like myself who doesn’t pick up languages (or math, or directions) easily, hearing it spoken in the home as I was growing up, would have had a profound impact.

It’s not that I’m bitter (okay, I’m a little bitter) that my parents didn’t teach us Spanish, because in a way I can understand their motivation. When my mother was a child she moved back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. Her first memory of moving to Mexico was starting kindergarten and not knowing a word of Spanish. Eventually the family picked up and moved north, but by that time she’d lost her English. She was scared and uncomfortable at school and she never forgot that feeling. She didn’t want her children to be teased or have a difficult time learning. She wanted us to speak English well and assimilate.

And assimilate we did. We were not the Condes de la Torres. We were the Condeses (con-desses). The assimilation to the broader U.S. culture happened even though we grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where 35 percent of the population is Hispanic and most of that percentage spoke Spanish. We would hear the language everywhere we went, but I could only catch half of the conversation at best.

I’ve studied Spanish several times in my life, both in high school and college, as well as a summer immersion program in Guadalajara, Mexico. Hell, my college minor was Spanish. Even with all of that, I was far from fluent. I wonder if my parents had spoken to us in both Spanish and English for the first decade or so of our lives would we be fluent in both, like all of my cousins and friends who grew up in bilingual households?

Now that I’m a parent, I try to teach my kids words and phrases, and when my mom comes to visit she speaks and reads to them in Spanish. I try to bring as much Mexican culture into our home as possible and read to them from Spanish-English books. I hope that those things, combined with Spanish classes early on, will help them love the language and want to speak it.

I recently talked with a fellow mom who was bilingual, but had made the decision not to speak Spanish in front of her kids. Like my mom, she just wanted them to read and write well in one language. Hearing that, I thought of my continuing regret that Spanish was not a fundamental part of how I was raised nor who I am today. I told her my story and how I wished I had a bilingual life. I hope she reconsiders and gives her kids that chance.

Yvonne Condes also blogs at www.yvonneinla.blogspot.com and is a contributing blogger for LA Moms Blog. When she’s not writing she’s baking delightful gluten-free baked goods for www.yvonnesgfgoodies.com

Photo by creo que soy yo

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about something I read recently. As I have already mentioned, since starting SpanglishBaby, I feel like I spend most of my waking hours here, surfing the internet. Every single time I sit in front of my laptop’s 13-inch screen, I find something new and interesting regarding bilingualism, languages, Spanglish. Anyhow, I still don’t know how I feel about the blog entry in question; the one I can’t get out of my mind. I do know its content is disturbing to me, but I haven’t fully figured out why. And I was thinking maybe you can help me sort it out?

The entry was written a couple of months back for the parenting section of a blog in New Jersey. The author, a Hispanic mother of two, confesses that even though she is bilingual, her kids are not. Of course, she is not the first one, nor–I’m sure–will she be the last parent to do this. It is a well know fact that many second generation Latinos, particularly Mexican-Americans in the West, were forbidden by their parents to speak Spanish, despite their own limitations in English, in an effort to help them assimilate to their new culture. That’s why we see so many people with “Hispanic” last names que no hablan ni pio de español.

To be or not to be…bilingual and bicultural

And it is exactly that–her struggle with assimilation–the main reason the author of the entry uses for deciding not to raise her kids bilingual. She states that she can’t hide her pride when seeing the words “New Jersey” on her children’s birth certificates and that she was secretly delighted when her kids grew up so “American.” Something she didn’t have, I guess. Even so, I fail to see how that has anything to do with giving your kids the gift of bilingualism; a gift the author herself got from her parents.

To be fair, she doesn’t really describe her struggle in this blog entry, so it’s difficult to gauge what she is referring to . This is what I do know from additional research: her parents brought her here as a baby and overstayed their visa. When she was 6 years old, she returned to Argentina with her mother for her grandfather’s funeral. It took her father two years to figure out how she would get them back to the States. Finally, when she was 8 years old, with the help of a coyote they crossed the border illegally and the family was whole again.

I can imagine this being an odyssey for a child. However, I’m still having a hard time understanding the correlation. In other words, her kids are already American, they were born here, so what kind of struggles would they go through if she had taught them her mother tongue? Here’s something else I don’t get: why would she deprive her kids the opportunity to learn who she truly is? I read somewhere about a Korean woman whose parents did not teach her Korean in the name of “assimilation.” The woman has never been able to communicate directly with her grandparents, read her published uncle’s books, feel like she belongs among her Korean community in the States and will not be able to teach Korean to her own two kids. How sad. In the end, she says: “It’s about teaching kids your heritage and making sure things are passed down.”

Belonging to two worlds

And that’s exactly how I feel. For me, teaching Vanessa Spanish has more to do with history and identity than with future advantages and benefits, these are added bonuses. I just simply can’t imagine her not being able to communicate with my 94-year-old grandmother or feeling like a stranger among her own family because she doesn’t understand our native language. Yes, my daughter is American.

Her birth certificate says “Colorado” and she is being raised right here, so I’m sure she’ll grow up “American.” Yet, nothing would make my husband and I more heartbroken than failing to teach our kids the richness of our diverse culture and the blessings of belonging to two worlds. After all, that’s how we’ve been living for a while now and we couldn’t feel luckier. !Gracias papá y mamá!

This is just my opinion. This is an open forum and all points of views are welcomed and ecouraged. What is your point of view? Has this been a struggle for you? Thanks for sharing.

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