Language/Literacy Narrative

My grandparents are from the Dominican Republic. Spanish is their very first language. This image shows my grandparents at baptism church while I was baptized at a really young age.

     What significant impacts have learning another language and fear of judgment left for me from childhood to the present day?

     Learning another language has been a goal that I was not very fond of growing up—beginning to speak English for the first time in childhood and the language I am currently fluent in and my first language. Growing up, I would always get comments like, “Will you ever learn to speak Spanish?”/ “You need to learn to speak Spanish”/ “Being bilingual is good,” etc. Considering that my grandparents are initially from the Dominican Republic, their first language was Spanish. Whenever my Abuela would speak her Spanish, I would try to comprehend and respond to her words. I would sometimes think to myself, “what was she saying?”/ “Let me try and respond in the best way possible.” But at times, I would usually let my mother step in and translate Spanish to English to understand better. Like my family, my Spanish friends would converse with each other. I would try to interpret what the words meant. I would try to learn Spanish using a Spanish dictionary (recommended by my high school English teacher, who also speaks Spanish), Google Translate, and Spanish-speaking apps. Learning to speak Spanish in high school has been quite an exciting experience, especially when you have friends who already know Spanish very well and assist in translating English to Spanish. Learning the Spanish terms in the class was honestly one of the most challenging. Some of the friends I have speak fluently in Spanish. Whenever I tried and spoke Spanish, I would get comments about portraying the language as foul, sometimes good, especially when I am not fluent. To myself, I would say, “Dammit, so close,” “Almost had it,” “Argh, I knew that one!” That would sometimes neutralize my confidence as either good or bad at Spanish.

     My speaking was humorous, confusing, funny, and misunderstandable, especially when socializing. Similar to trying to comprehend, there were times when I would get timid to speak whenever I was in class, with friends and family, and meeting new people leading to awkward communication. My timidity started in my “Humanities” class in middle school. I usually never raise my hand in class when asked a specific question. I am always quiet and hesitant when I try to talk, especially when speaking Spanish. Whenever I take the time to try and speak, one second, I have something to say; the next second, I would start mixing up my participation and immediately fade to silence, worried about stating the wrong idea. Saleem’s statement of being “anti-social” relates to me because he and I are usually introverted to socializing with other people regardless of our language being English, Spanish, etc. On the contrary, I try to be more extroverted, and so far, it has been somewhat tricky; however, I am still trying my best to step out of my “comfort zone” and meet new people in life. Therefore, I am a shy person and trying to improve my social skills. Socializing may not be the easiest; however, I plan on doing the best that I can.

     I continue to process my Spanish-speaking journey, and so far, I view my language learning as improving as I continue to grow. It may not be the most straightforward process considering I would still feel embarrassed talking to my mother in Spanish even when she says, “Vamo Hablamos Espanol.” To that, I would say to her, “Seriously? For real? No.” Despite all this, I would still converse with her in Spanish, knowing how embarrassed I would feel, supposedly realizing how “good” I sounded speaking Spanish. Nonetheless, my mother would continue to motivate me to learn to speak more Spanish regardless of my not feeling the mood to do it. Moreover, my mother would inform me about Spanish camps and programs to help improve my Spanish-speaking; however, I think to myself how boring it sounds because camps and programs aren’t something I look forward to trying. Overall, I am not interested in doing things I do not want to do.

     Overall, though I am not the most prominent social butterfly, reader, writer, or Spanish speaker, I am very proud of what I have accomplished growing up and still planning to learn currently and in the future. I hope to achieve and pursue the goals I have planned out for my life, no matter how challenging the process goes.