The Presence of Spanish

It’s sometimes difficult to avoid a cultural assumption if we have no idea we are making one. For example, the assumption that a Hispanic should be fluent in Spanish for both written and spoken is an expected trait but as the rate of Hispanics who are raised in the United States rises, so does the likelihood that their skills may not be as sharp as you may assume.

Learning The Language

Growing up, Spanish was the predominant language at home largely because that’s all my parents knew and spoke at the time. The English learning portion eventually took care of itself once my brother and I attended school and although the idea of having to juggle two languages may have seemed overwhelming, in hindsight I value the experience and realize that I would not have wanted an alternate upbringing.

The added fluency in the language came more from the yearly summer vacations we took visiting my family in El Salvador. At one point, we enjoyed our stay so much that our parents arranged for us to move with them, where we eventually attended school for 5 years and had front row exposure to what has become the foundation in how we seamlessly shift between both languages when speaking or writing it.

Some Just Don’t

When I come across Hispanics that don’t speak Spanish, the answer to my question of “why” is the same one many other monolingual Hispanics will give you: “My parents didn’t teach me”.

Some can speak but can’t write it, some can speak but not effectively, some can understand it but respond with a mixture of English and Spanish or otherwise known as Spanglish. Either way, at least coming from the people that I know personally, the number of those who manage both languages very well is low.

Random Hispanics that come up to me at work intially start off the interaction speaking English and when I see that there’s a struggle on their part, I reply in Spanish and there’s nothing more gratifying than seeing the sight of relief on their face when they know that I can. These are the moments when in my mind I thank my parents for providing me with the ingredient that makes me who I am now.

The Need to Know Both

I’ve always found interest in believing that the things that come natural to us are the ones we’ve never had to put extra effort in learning. Of course that’s not the reality of things because the confidence we’ve created for ourselves for knowing something is deeply atrributed on the practice we’ve put into it.

Being bilingual and having a multicultural mentality is now more than ever a valued attribute for anyone not just because of the competitive job market or the easier communication aspect when traveling but for me personally because when you’re passionate about your ethnicity, your knowledge of the native language should be something to be waved also and not just the flag.

Of course all this is dependent upon how you’re raised and I was fortunate enough to be exposed to both worlds. My wife was raised in a predominately English speaking environment which generally tends to be the case when you’re a second-generation child, so her fluency in the language is not as fully developed but I like to think that it has improved since we’ve been together. There’s times when I just speak to her in Spanish just to get her practicing more.

We don’t have kids yet but we’ve already had the conversation in that they will gain an equal exposure to Spanish as much as they will to English.

Although there might be a few, I like to think that the reason some Hispanics don’t speak the language is not because of them being ashamed of their culture but more just a result of it and based on the multi-cultural experience I had growing up, I would never want to take away from my children a privilege that is rightfully theirs already, which is knowing Spanish.

2 years ago  /  5 notes