On the Power of Bilingualism
written in 2012, the National Association for Bilingual Education selected
this piece for their annual essay contest. Here is an updated version.
Often, barriers between cultures necessitate a bridge to be built; a bridge of understanding, of tolerance and acceptance, this bridge is built by language. Communication is a vital tool needed to understand a people—their dialogue, their colloquialisms, their jargon—how they develop thoughts and their ideologies. But sometimes barriers can’t be overcome with only words; it’s how conversations carry one to realize what a language, or two for that matter, can signify for a people, for an ethnicity, for an individual, and for their own destinies in a country filled with diverse languages and cultures.
I grew up in a Mexican household where tradition was virtue and patience was handed down, slowly over time. My parents immigrated to the United States in the early 1980’s and early 90’s; both originated from the same home-town but had different stops on the way to Salt Lake City, Utah. My father, a dark slim man, had worked as a farmworker during the Reagan Administration in California and was granted his permanent residency. My mother, a green-eyed light-skinned woman, crossed the Nogales border with her 3 year old daughter and received her residency 18 years after touching American soil in 1991. My childhood was caught in the banter of immigrant values, recycling of beer cans, counting of rosary beads and learning how to speak like a gringo. My native tongue is that of my mother and father; of Conquistadores, of Southern-Mexico, of romantic syllables. My first language was Spanish, but I soon realized through mandatory English as a Second Language classes that my language is something that should be spoke at home; not on school-grounds or in classrooms.
This heavily troubled me at an early age.
Reaching high school and grasping a language that is considered as a golden ticket for immigrant communities, I caught a glimpse of the barrier between the flocks of Mexican immigrants and White America, the America that is frightened with countless rumors of criminals and parasites being nurtured by their tax dollars; I saw the cultural miscommunication. I realized this through my native instinct of replying to Mexican slang, my second tongue feeling the need to dance when reciting translated poems and the growing sentiment of inner-rejection. I was at one point embarrassed about my heritage and soon repressed my bilingual power, I was afraid.
Being a bilingual speaker interlopes with the fact that most of Chicanos are not only living within two cultures, we are living within two languages trying to cross burning bridges, two worlds that have been faced with the fear of history between each other. The power of bilingualism is a gift that equips one to overcome the fear and a gift we must learn how to harness; the power becomes a relic of healing. It teaches one to embrace the beauty of heritage, I truly believe communication can resolve external resentments and vanquish any internal oppression; it creates bridges within communities and cultures. The bilingualism spawns a new identity, a new individual made of two parts: Spanish and English, Mexico and the US, past and present; two parts of me.
I grew up in a Mexican household where tradition was virtue and patience was handed down, slowly over time. My parents immigrated to the United States in the early 1980’s and early 90’s; both originated from the same home-town but had different stops on the way to Salt Lake City, Utah. My father, a dark slim man, had worked as a farmworker during the Reagan Administration in California and was granted his permanent residency. My mother, a green-eyed light-skinned woman, crossed the Nogales border with her 3 year old daughter and received her residency 18 years after touching American soil in 1991. My childhood was caught in the banter of immigrant values, recycling of beer cans, counting of rosary beads and learning how to speak like a gringo. My native tongue is that of my mother and father; of Conquistadores, of Southern-Mexico, of romantic syllables. My first language was Spanish, but I soon realized through mandatory English as a Second Language classes that my language is something that should be spoke at home; not on school-grounds or in classrooms.
This heavily troubled me at an early age.
Reaching high school and grasping a language that is considered as a golden ticket for immigrant communities, I caught a glimpse of the barrier between the flocks of Mexican immigrants and White America, the America that is frightened with countless rumors of criminals and parasites being nurtured by their tax dollars; I saw the cultural miscommunication. I realized this through my native instinct of replying to Mexican slang, my second tongue feeling the need to dance when reciting translated poems and the growing sentiment of inner-rejection. I was at one point embarrassed about my heritage and soon repressed my bilingual power, I was afraid.
Being a bilingual speaker interlopes with the fact that most of Chicanos are not only living within two cultures, we are living within two languages trying to cross burning bridges, two worlds that have been faced with the fear of history between each other. The power of bilingualism is a gift that equips one to overcome the fear and a gift we must learn how to harness; the power becomes a relic of healing. It teaches one to embrace the beauty of heritage, I truly believe communication can resolve external resentments and vanquish any internal oppression; it creates bridges within communities and cultures. The bilingualism spawns a new identity, a new individual made of two parts: Spanish and English, Mexico and the US, past and present; two parts of me.
