Obamba

I've always loved this guy on "I Love the 70s" and "I Love the 80s" .... I never knew he was half Italian and half Colombian. Whatever his background, I love this video!

Proof that the Celts were in Northern Spain

You can always tell who was tromping around in a country by the music they left (and the faces -- there are a lot of redheads in northern Spain).

Enjoy this clip of Hevia, and his music that - believe it or not - is very typical of Asturias ...

Happy Day After St. Patrick's Day!

Concierto por la paz

Juanes tiene la camisa blanca - and so do tens of thousands of others who want PEACE.




A message of peace from the Colombian-Venezuelan border .... initiated by Juanes, joined by Alejandro Sanz, Juan Luis Guerra, Carlos Vives, Miguel Bosé and Ricardo Montaner ...

I was at the Juanes concert at Madison Square Garden on March 6, and we were a little surprised that he mentioned the Colombian-Venezuelan-Ecuadorean situation only once, and seemingly in passing, rather speaking out a lot during the concert.

But I also realized at the time that Juanes seems more comfortable sending his message through his songs and his actions, rather than just through speeches. Indeed, his songs have always reflected that message, and he did speak through his songs that night.

And then two days later, he spoke definitively through his actions, by announcing that he was organizing this concert. In less than a week, this is what he pulled together.

Miles de personas asisten hoy domingo vestidas de blanco en las adyacencias de un puente fronterizo entre Colombia y Venezuela para el concierto gratuito denominado "Paz sin Fronteras" promovido por Juanes y al que invitó a media docena de artistas internacionales.

And here's Carlos Vives speaking -- I love his message, too, and how he shares it.




I know it will take more than music and white shirts to bring about peace in this region ..... but I also know that the only way to start is by creating a critical mass of people working together for a positive change.

¡Viva Juanes, and all the other artists who participated in the Concierto por la Paz sin Fronteras! Let's hope the positive spirit generated here carries over into more positive action in the future, by each and every person who attended the concert ... or watched it on TV ... or saw it on the internet ... or read about it in this blog.

Geraldo Rivera vs. Bill O'Reilly on immigration

VERY worth viewing .... wow. EXCELLENT. Good for Geraldo ... he is so
right that racism is at the heart of this debate.

In the middle of this first clip, listen to what O'Reilly says when Geraldo compares the Irish, English, etc. getting 76% of the visas
allowed in 1924, while the Italians got 3% and the Mexicans got 0%. Go
to minute 2:38 to see the O'Reilly response ..... !!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I literally jumped out of my chair when I heard what O'Reilly said -- ask my friend Liz, who was with me -- and wanted to reach through the screen and grab him. I am still speechless.)


Geraldo vs. O'Reilly, Clip 1


In the second clip, they really go at each other.



Geraldo vs. O'Reilly, Clip 2


For the record .... My grandparents all came here in the early 1900s.
It happened to be "legal" at the time. But had it been "illegal" ....
I'm sure they would have found a way to come anyway. In one case they
were literally starving (no work, no food, no future, no hope, etc. in
Sicily) and in the other they were victims of religious persecution
(Jews from Russia and Poland). People don't come here to take advantage
and be criminals ... they come here to make a future for themselves and
for their families. And in the process, they make enormous contributions to this nation.

As Rivera very clearly points out, racism and xenophobia have always been part of the immigration debate. So perhaps it is the triumph of hope over experience when I say that I sincerely hope that this negative propaganda will stop, and that these racist attitudes and policies will start to change, once the administration does.

In the meantime, I will continue to promote positive messages about the mix of languages and cultures that enrich our lives, our nation, and our world.

And I will be heading out to my local bookstore for the book "His Panic", by Geraldo Rivera ...

Hostages released in Colombia

Just saw on my Yahoo news en español that Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzales were released in Colombia after six years of captivity. Let's hope that Ingrid Betancourt is next ... and soon.

Here is the text of a letter from her, written on October 24, 2007.

Bogotá

A Continuación se publica la carta que Ingrid Betancourt le envió a su madre, después de cinco años y nueve meses de permanecer secuestrada por las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc).
Se incluyen aclaraciones necesarias, entre paréntesis, para que el lector sepa a quienes se refiere Betancourt, al mencionar a sus familiares.

"Este es un momento muy duro para mí. Piden pruebas de supervivencia a quemarropa y aquí estoy escribiéndote mi alma tendida sobre este papel. Estoy mal físicamente. No he vuelto a comer, el apetito se me bloqueó, el pelo se me cae en grandes cantidades.
No tengo ganas de nada. Creo que eso es lo único que está bien, no tengo ganas de nada porque aquí en esta selva la única respuesta a todo es 'no'. Es mejor, entonces, no querer nada para quedar libre al menos de deseos. Hace 3 años estoy pidiendo un diccionario enciclopédico para leer algo, aprender algo, mantener la curiosidad intelectual viva. Sigo esperando que al menos, por compasión, me faciliten uno, pero es mejor no pensar en eso.
De ahí para adelante, cualquier cosa es un milagro, hasta oírte por las mañanas porque el radio que tengo es muy viejo y dañado.
Quiero pedirte mamita linda que le digas a los niños que quiero que me manden tres mensajes semanales (...) Nada trascendental, sino lo que puedan y se les ocurra escribir de afán (...) No necesito nada más, pero necesito estar en contacto con ellos. Es la única información vital, trascendental, imprescindible, lo demás ya no me importa (...).
Como te decía, la vida aquí no es vida, es un desperdicio lúgubre de tiempo. Vivo o sobrevivo en una hamaca tendida entre dos palos, cubierta con un mosquitero y con una carpa encima, que oficia de techo, con lo cual puedo pensar que tengo una casa.
Tengo una repisa donde pongo mi equipo, es decir, el morral con la ropa y la Biblia que es mi único lujo. Todo listo para salir corriendo. Aquí nada es propio, nada dura, la incertidumbre y la precariedad son la única constante. En cualquier momento dan la orden de empacar y duerme uno en cualquier hueco, tendido en cualquier sitio, como cualquier animal (...) Me sudan las manos y se me nubla la mente y termino haciendo las cosas dos veces más despacio que lo normal. Las marchas son un calvario porque mi equipo es muy pesado y no puedo con él (...) Pero todo es estresante, se pierden mis cosas o me las quitan, como el bluyin que Mela (su hija Mélanie) me había regalado en Navidad, con el que me cogieron. Lo único que he podido salvar es la chaqueta, ha sido una bendición, porque las noches son heladas y no he tenido más que echarme encima.
Antes disfrutaba cada baño en el río. Como soy la única mujer del grupo, me toca prácticamente vestida: shorts, brasier, camiseta, botas. Antes me gustaba nadar en el río, hoy ni siquiera tengo alientos para eso. Estoy débil, friolenta, parezco un gato acercándose al agua. Yo que tanto he adorado el agua, ni me reconozco. (...) Pero desde que separaron los grupos no he tenido el interés ni la energía para hacer nada. Hago algo de estiramiento porque el estrés me bloquea el cuello y duele mucho.
Con los ejercicios de estiramiento, el split y demás logro aliviar un poco la tensión en el cuello. (...) Yo trato de guardar silencio, hablo lo menos posible para evitar problemas. La presencia de una mujer en medio de tantos prisioneros que llevan 8 y 10 años cautivos es un problema (...) En las requisas le quitan a uno lo que uno más quiere. Una carta que me llegó tuya me la quitaron después de la última prueba de supervivencia en el 2003. Los dibujos de Natasha y Stanis (Anastasia y Stanislao, sobrinos de Ingrid), las fotos de Mela y Loli (Lorenzo, hijo de Ingrid), el escapulario de mi papá, un programa de gobierno con 190 puntos, todo me lo quitaron. Cada día me queda menos de mí misma. Algunos detalles ya Pinchao te los contó (Jean Pinchao, subintendente de la Policía, que escapó después de ocho años secuestrado por las Farc). Todo es duro.
Es importante que le dedique estas líneas a aquellos seres que son mi oxígeno, mi vida. A quienes me mantienen con la cabeza fuera del agua, no dejan ahogarme en el olvido, la nada y la desesperanza. Ellos son tu, mis hijos, Astrica (su hermana Astrid) y mis chiquitines, Fab (Fabrice Delloye, el padre de sus hijos), tía Nancy y Juangui.
Todos los días estoy en comunicación con Dios, Jesús y la Virgen (...) Aquí todo tiene dos caras, la alegría viene y luego el dolor.
La felicidad es triste. El amor alivia y abre heridas nuevas... es vivir y morir de nuevo. Durante años no pude pensar en los niños y el dolor de la muerte de mi papá copaba toda la capacidad de aguante. Llorando pensaba en ellos, sentía que me asfixiaba, que no podía respirar. Entre mí me decía: Fab está ahí, él cuida de todo, no hay que pensarlo ni hay que pensar. Casi me enloquezco con la muerte de mi papá. Nunca supe cómo fue, quiénes estaban, si me dejó un mensaje, una carta, una bendición. Pero lo que ha aliviado mi tormenta es pensar que se fue confiando en Dios y que allá volveré a abrazarlo. De eso estoy segura. Sentirte fuerte ha sido mi fuerza. Yo no vi mensajes sino hasta que me unieron con Lucho, Luis Eladio Pérez (congresista colombiano que se encuentra secuestrado por las Farc), el 22 de agosto del 2003. Fuimos amigos entrañables, nos separamos en agosto. Pero durante ese tiempo él fue mi apoyo, mi escudero, mi hermano (...).
Tengo en mi memoria cada una de las edades (de mis hijos). En cada cumpleaños les canto el Happy Birthday. Solicito que me permitan hacer una torta. Pero desde hace tres años siempre que pido, la respuesta es no. Igual, si traen una galleta o una sopa cualquiera de arroz y fríjol, que es lo usual, con eso hago de cuenta que es una torta y les celebro en mi corazón su cumpleaños.
A mi Melelinga (su hija Mélanie); mi sol de primavera, mi princesa de la constelación del cisne, a ella que tanto adoro, quiero decirte que soy la mamá más orgullosa de esta tierra (...) Y si tuviera que morir hoy, me iría satisfecha con la vida dándole gracias a Dios por mis hijos. Estoy feliz con su master en N.Y. Eso es exactamente lo que yo le hubiera aconsejado (...) Pero ojo, es muy importante que haga su DOCTORADO. En el mundo de hoy, hasta para respirar se necesitan credenciales (...) No me voy a cansar en insitirle a Loli (Lorenzo) y Mela que no claudiquen hasta obtener su PhD. Quisiera que Mela me lo prometiera (...).
Siempre te he dicho que eres lo mejor, mucho mejor que yo, algo así como la mejor versión de lo que yo quisiera ser. Por eso, con la experiencia que he acumulado en mi vida y en la perspectiva que da el mundo mirarlo desde la distancia, te pido mi vida que te prepares para llegar a la cumbre.
A mi Lorenzo, mi Loli Pop, mi ángel de luz, mi rey de aguas azules, mi chief musician que me canta, y me encanta, al dueño de mi corazón, quiero decirle que desde el día en que nació hasta hoy ha sido mi manantial de alegrías. Todo lo que viene de él es bálsamo para mi alma, todo me reconforta, todo me apacigua, me da placer y placidez.
Al fin pude oírle la voz, un par de veces este año. Me dio temblor de la emoción. Es mi Loli, la voz de mi niño, pero ya hay otro hombre encima de la voz de niño. Una ronquera de hombre-hombre, como la de mi papá. (...) El otro día recorté una foto en la prensa, que llegó de casualidad. Es una propaganda de un perfume de Carolina Herrera '212 Sexy men'. Sale un muchacho joven y pensé: así debe estar mi Lorenzo. Y la guardé
(...) Tienen la vida pendiente, busquen llegar a lo más alto, estudiar es crecer, no solo por lo que se aprende intelectualmente, sino por la experiencia humana, la gente alrededor de uno que lo alimenta emocionalmente para tener cada día mayor control sobre uno mismo, y espiritualmente, para moldear un mayor carácter de servicio a los demás, donde el ego se reduzca a su más mínima expresión y se crezca en humildad y fuerza moral. Una va con otra. Eso es vivir, crecer para servir (...).
A mi Sebastián adorado, mi pequeño príncipe de viajes astrales y ancestrales. ¡Tanto que quiero decirle! Primero, que no quiero irme de este mundo sin que él tenga el conocimiento, la certeza y la confirmación de que no son 2, sino 3 mis hijos del alma (...) Pero con él tendré que desenredar años de silencios que me pesan demasiado desde el cautiverio. Decidí que mi color favorito es el azul de sus ojos (...). Por si acaso no llego a salir de aquí, te lo escribo para que lo guardes en tu alma, mi Babon adorado, y para que entiendas, lo que yo entendí cuando tus hermanos nacieron, y es que siempre te he querido como al hijo que eres y que Dios me dio. Los demás son formalidades.
Yo sé que Fab ha sufrido mucho por mí. Pero que su sufrimiento tenga alivio en saber que él ha sido fuente de paz para mí. (...) Dile a Fab que en él me recuesto, sobre sus hombros lloro, en él me apoyo para seguir sonriendo de tristeza, su amor me hace fuerte. Porque está él al frente de las necesidades de mis hijos, puedo terminar de respirar sin que me duela tanto la vida.
A mi Astrica, tantas cosas que no sé por donde empezar. De pronto decirle que su ‘hojita de vida’ me salvó durante el primer año de secuestro, durante el año de duelo de mi papá. (...)
Necesito hablar con ella de todos estos momentos, y abrazarla y llorar hasta que se me agote el pozo de lágrimas que tengo en el cuerpo. En todo lo que hago durante el día está ella como referencia. Siempre pienso, ‘Esto lo hacía con Astrid cuando éramos chiquitas’, o ‘esto lo hacía Astrid mejor que yo’ (...) La he oído varias veces por radio. Siento mucha admiración por su impecable expresión, por la calidad de su reflexión, por el dominio de sus emociones, por la elegancia de sus sentimientos. La oigo y pienso: ‘Yo quiero ser así’ (...). Me imagino cómo gozan con Anastasia y Stanis. Como me ha dolido que me quitaran sus dibujos. El poema de Anastasia decía, ‘por un golpe de suerte, por un golpe de magia o de Dios, en tres años o 3 días estarás de vuelta con nosotros’. El dibujo de Stanis era un rescate con helicóptero, yo dormida en una caleta igualita a las de aquí, y él era mi salvador.



Mamita, son tantas las personas a las cuales quiero darles las gracias por acordarse de nosotros, por no habernos abandonado. Durante mucho tiempo hemos sido como los leprosos que afean el baile, los secuestrados no somos un tema "políticamente correcto", suena mejor decir que hay que ser fuertes frente a la guerrilla aún sin sacrificar algunas vidas humanas. Ante eso, el silencio. Solo el tiempo puede abrir las conciencias y elevar los espíritus. Pienso en la grandeza de los Estados Unidos, por ejemplo. Esa grandeza no es el fruto de la riqueza en tierras, materias primas, etc, sino el fruto de la grandeza de alma de los líderes que moldearon la Nación. Cuando Lincoln defendió el derecho a la vida y a la libertad de los esclavos negros de América, también se enfrentó con muchos Floridas y Praderas (es el nombre de los dos pueblos colombianos que la guerrilla ha exigido siempre, que sea despejada de presencia militar, para posibilitar las negociaciones, entre esa guerrilla y el gobierno, para la liberación de los rehenes).
Muchos intereses económicos y políticos que consideraban que eran superiores a la vida y a la libertad de un puñado de negros. Pero Lincoln ganó, y quedó impreso en el colectivo de esa nación la prioridad de la vida del ser humano sobre cualquier otro interés.
En Colombia todavía tenemos que pensar de dónde venimos, quiénes somos y a dónde queremos ir. Yo aspiro a que algún día tengamos esa sed de grandeza que hace surgir a los pueblos de la nada hacia el sol. Cuando seamos incondicionales ante la defensa de la vida y de la libertad de los nuestros, es decir, cuando seamos menos individualistas y más solidarios, menos indiferentes y más comprometidos, menos intolerantes y más compasivos. Entonces ese día seremos la nación grande que todos quisiéramos que fuéramos. Esa grandeza está ahí dormidita en los corazones. Pero los corazones se han endurecido y pesan tanto que no permiten sentimientos elevados. Pero hay mucha gente que yo quisiera agradecer porque están contribuyendo a despertar los espíritus y a engrandecer a Colombia. No puedo mencionarlos a todos pero sí a algunos (...).
Mamita, ay vinieron por las cartas. No voy a alcanzar a escribir todo lo que quisiera. A Piedad y a Chávez todo, todo mi afecto y mi admiración. Nuestras vidas están ahí, en el corazón de ellos, que sé que es grande y valeroso.
Mi corazón también le pertenece a Francia (...) Cuando la noche era la más oscura, Francia fue el faro. Cuando era mal visto pedir nuestra libertad. Francia no se calló. Cuando acusaron a nuestras familias de hacer daño a Colombia, Francia les dio apoyo y consuelo.
No podría creer que es posible salir algún día libre de aquí, si no conociera la historia de Francia y de su pueblo. Le he pedido a Dios que me cubra de la misma fuerza con la que Francia ha sabido soportar la adversidad para sentirme más digna de ser contada entre sus hijos. Quiero a Francia con el alma, las voces de mi ser buscan nutrirse de los componentes de su carácter nacional, siempre buscando guiarse por principios y no por intereses. Quiero a Francia con mi corazón, porque admiro la capacidad de movilización de un pueblo que como Camus entiende que vivir es comprometerse. (...) Todos estos años han sido terribles, pero no creo que podría seguir aún viva sin el compromiso que nos brindaron a todos los que aquí vivimos muertos.
(...) Sé que lo que estamos viviendo está lleno de incognitas, pero la historia tiene su propios tiempos de maduración, y el presidente Sarkozy está parado en el meridiano de la historia. Con el presidente Chávez, el presidente Bush y la solidaridad de todo el continente podríamos presenciar un milagro.
Durante muchos años he pensado que mientras esté viva, mientras siga respirando, tengo que seguir albergando la esperanza. Ya no tengo las mismas fuerzas, ya me cuesta mucho trabajo seguir creyendo, pero quería que sientan que lo que han hecho por nosotros marca la diferencia. Nos hemos sentido seres humanos (...). Mamita tendría más cosas para decirte. Explicarte que hace tiempo no tengo noticias de Clara y de su bebé (...). Bueno, mamita, Dios nos ayude, nos guíe, nos dé paciencia y nos cubra. Por siempre y para siempre”.

Priceless ....

Like the Chávez cartoon below, this wouldn't be funny if it weren't so true. And the fact that it is true isn't funny at all. Still, enjoy the laugh!

¿Por qué no te callas?

It's the #1 ringtone in Spain, the top phrase on T-shirts in Venezuela, and now a great cartoon.

The cartoon is funny. Too bad the situation in Venezuela isn't.

Why I Love Teaching

I love teaching because I love the kids, I love the language, I love sharing my passion for it all .... and because I just can't make this stuff up.

On the midterm this week, the students had to define the word "antepasado," which means "ancestor."

One student wrote:

El antepasado - "El antepasado es una comida muy deliciosa."

I guess he was confusing it with antipasto?

I don't know, but it made my week. (Maybe I'm just tired and a little punchy after grading all those midterms?)

BBC Mundo Interview

I was so thrilled by BBC Mundo's "¿Hablas español?" project that I blogged about it several times, and wrote them a number of messages and comments along their route.

It turns out that one of my main comments (and the main focus of many of my blog posts, my videos, my teaching, my writing, and my mission in general) - that Spanish is no longer a foreign language in the United States - became the main slogan or theme of their trip.

So I was delighted when José Baig, the coordinator of the project, wrote to me and asked if he could interview me about teaching Spanish in the United States.

Here's the result ....

And you can now continue to follow José's observations on the impact of Spanish in the English-speaking world, on the BBC Mundo "¿Hablas español?" blog.

José says they will be returning to the United States next year for a "¿Tú también hablas español?" tour. I'm looking forward to meeting them this time!

¡¡¡ Maná at Madison Square Garden !!!!

AMAZING concert ....

.... and what an opening!





When the wall exploded, the Garden went wild.

(This video is from the Chicago concert.)

These guys have been around for over 20 years (really, almost 30), and I'm so glad they've stuck together. They just keep getting better and better.

The One Semester of Spanish Love Song

I can't stop laughing at this .... and you know what? It really shows how much you can communicate with some very simple words!

Just say Hola!

September is always such a busy month, with many new beginnings ... especially this year, when this month began with taking my oldest child to college on the opposite coast and then starting a new university-level teaching position ....

And speaking of new beginnings, I have always said that just as a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, the road to fluency in Spanish begins with a single word: Hola.

So I was delighted to read about an initiative to start a new holiday: "Hola Day", started by Myelita Melton, a Spanish teacher in North Carolina.

Celebrated on October 1st, right in the middle of Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15th through October 15th), Hola Day is designed to foster a greater appreciation for the use of the Spanish language in the US. It honors both native speakers and non-native speakers who commit themselves to learning Spanish as a second language and using it in their daily lives.

Many communities and states across the United States are signing on, with a proclamation.

“Participating in Hola Day is simple,” says Melton. “We are asking everyone in America to say something in Spanish to someone else on Oct. 1. What you say can be as simple as ‘hola’ and ‘adiós’ or as complicated as you wish. Also, the person you speak to doesn’t have to speak Spanish; the whole point is that you do.”

I love the idea, even if I didn't think of it myself! Myelita definitely gets my Viva la Chispa award!

New op-ed published

Is advertising coffee in a foreign language really going to undermine our culture and our values? (If so, someone had better tell Starbucks to take the words “grande” and “macchiato” off its menu.)

Do really we need a law to tell us that English is the primary language of this country?

And are we really threatened by bilingual families, when most bilingual children spend the majority of their day speaking English?

Apparently, some people would answer "yes" to all of the above.

My latest op-ed, All Languages Spoken Here, was just published today, and is about precisely this issue ... and how the escalating discrimination and negativity against immigrants and their languages is hastening the loss of the precious linguistic and cultural resources of our immigrant communities -- precisely at the time when we need those resources most.

By the way, the "Bogota" mentioned in the article is Bogota, New Jersey (not Bogotá, Colombia).

Because of space limitations, I couldn't include more about the personal losses that go along with this loss of language, or about how strongly I feel that everyone should be studying foreign languages, learning about other cultures, and increasing both their local and their global multicultural awareness. Fortunately, there was another op-ed in the same paper yesterday about promoting multicultural education, so at least that point of view is out there at the same time. I'll write more about the personal losses - what I see as the loss of culture, identity and soul - at a later point.

An interesting coincidence is that I wrote this article, mentioning Bogota's mayor who took offense at the "café helado" sign, a few weeks ago. And then yesterday, I found this article in the New York Times, about how Steve Lonegan - Bogota mayor and immigration opponent - is the brother of Bryan Lonegan, immigration rights activist ... and they are the grandsons of an Italian immigrant. VERY interesting article.

I start a new Spanish teaching position on Friday, and I hope I will still have time to write about the intersection of language, culture, identity and soul ... issues which are all so important to me.

Spanish lessons in San Diego

I just got back from San Diego, and as always when I'm in the Southwest - and especially California - I feel like the entire experience is a Spanish lesson.

And I'm not even talking about how much Spanish you may hear on the streets or on the television or radio. Just the street and town names alone would be a great vocabulary practice.

In fact, I have often done a matching game in my classes, to help them see that many names that they may think of as just town names or place names (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Amarillo, etc. -and my personal favorite - Cape Canaveral, from cañaveral - sugar cane field) and even state names (Colorado, Nevada, Florida, etc.) actually have a real meaning in Spanish.

And not only is it a great vocabulary lesson; it also gives them an opportunity to see how the Southwest and Florida were originally colonized ... and by whom.

Latinos Describe “How I Learned English” in New Essay Collection

I just found this on Hispanic Trending .... great article, and I'm buying the book today ....

It's interesting that this book touches on two things that I'm writing about -- the fact that immigrants DO learn English (despite anti-immigrant rhetoric to the contrary -- and often at the cost of their original language), and also the fact that many bilinguals feel completely different in one language than in another. Which leads me to ask, if bilinguals are different in the two languages, and then one of those languages gets lost ... what happens to that part of the person's identity that was tied to the original language?

By the way, I know all about those embarrassing mistakes you can make when learning a language ... or even when you know a language, thanks to all the wonderful regional differences in Spanish! I found out the hard way that in Venezuela, you can't say "cuchara" when you want a spoon .... let's just say that I definitely don't recommend that you go out to a nice dinner in Venezuela with a big group of people, and ask for two desserts and eight cucharas ..... it was pretty funny when my friend told me later what I had said.

We do need to keep a sense of humor when we're learning ... and remember that the important thing is, we're learning!

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Latinos Describe “How I Learned English” in New Essay Collection

August 27, 2007
By Jenny Shank

When I was six years old, I began taking a bus to my assigned public elementary school west of Mile High Stadium, about a thirty-minute ride away from my southeast Denver home. At school I encountered an entirely different world from that of my neighborhood: many of my classmates were the children of immigrants, and while classes were taught in English, the school encouraged expressions of different cultures and the use of Spanish language.

On one wall was a mural of an image taken from the Mexican flag, an eagle with a snake in its beak, perched on a cactus. If you behaved especially well, the teacher might choose you to wear the “Ayudante” jean jacket for the week, and give you some tickets that could be exchanged for marvelous junk at the Cinco de Mayo carnival. I don’t remember a time before I knew the story of La Llorona, which I must have heard the Mexican-American kids telling on the playground. So it was with great interest that I read How I Learned English, a new anthology edited by Tom Miller featuring 55 short essays by Latinos who made the same journey my classmates did, from the Spanish-speaking world into the English-speaking world.

PBS NewsHour regular Ray Suarez writes in his introduction that “learning a language begins a passage to another way of seeing the world and speaking it into existence.” Some of the writers struggled to learn English, while others arrived in the United States as children and soaked the language up, perhaps losing their previous fluency in Spanish in the process, as novelist Francisco Goldman did. (He once listened to a tape recording of himself as a child, and writes, “It was strange to be a college student, listening to your four-year-old self do something that you couldn’t do anymore: speak fluent Spanish.")

Changing a language can change one’s worldview or even one’s personality, as University of Michigan anthropology professor Ruth Behar writes: “They tell me I was a nonstop talker, una cotorrita. But after we arrived in the United States I became shy, silent, sullen. I have no memory of myself as a little girl speaking Spanish in Cuba.” I have observed the personality changes that using different languages can bring first hand--my husband was born in New York to French parents, and learned English as a second language, in part from Sesame Street. When he speaks in French, he is typically more of a social papillon than he is when he speaks in English.

Most of the writers in this collection entered the American educational system before the Chicano rights movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s brought about changes that welcomed multiculturalism (like that mural on my elementary school’s wall), and so several writers report that a teacher asked their parents to speak in English at home to promote the children’s fluency.

This is what happened to the incisive essayist Richard Rodriguez in the excerpt included from his book Hunger of Memory. “As a socially disadvantaged child,” he writes, “I considered Spanish to be a private language. What I needed to learn in school was that I had the right--and the obligation--to speak the public language of los gringos.” Rodriguez was shy and mumbled in class until the day when three nuns from the school visited his family’s house and suggested they practice English at home. His parents declared the nuns’ suggestion a rule, and Rodriguez’s English flourished, though not without regret for the loss of his family’s private Spanish world. “The spell was broken,” he writes.

Even when immersed in the English language, it’s not easy to learn all of the idioms and rules of English, as Richard Lederer and Josh White Jr. note in their piece, “English Is Cuh-ray-zee.” “If the teacher taught,” they write, “why isn’t it true that a preacher praught?”

“How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same/ When a wise man and a wise guy are very different?”

In several of the essays, the writers remember language mistakes they made that caused great confusion. Alvaro Vargas Llosa writes that he learned English “the hard way--that is, wrenching my guts out with books, tapes, video courses, and that irreplaceable method, the humiliation of real-life trial and error.” He learned Spanish from his Peruvian parents, then picked up French before he began to study English at a boarding school in Britain. While there, he had an English girlfriend, and he recounts this sad and funny incident:

“After not seeing her for a few weeks, I wanted to tell her that I missed her. When I said to her, ‘I regret you,’ anglicizing the French word for missing someone, she looked at me in horror and spat out something like: ‘You are not a gentleman.’ We never saw each other again.”

Although many of the writers had fun learning English through television, movies, and music (as did Gigi Anders, who watched Captain Kangaroo and The Lucy Show, and congressman José Serrano, who listened to Frank Sinatra records), a common theme is how hard one must work to master and maintain a language. Miami Herald journalist Enrique Fernández taught college Spanish at one point, and writes, “From that experience I found out that a foreign language can be learned and that some people can learn it, while others can’t no matter how hard they try.”

Many writers note that English is a language that opens the world to them, and the image of the stubborn immigrant who doesn’t want to learn English is belied by the stories in this book. Ray Suarez writes about Samuel Huffington’s Foreign Policy essay, “Jose, Can You See?” in which “he peers into the future and sees native-born English speakers as an embattled minority.” Suarez observes that Huffington “looks at Latino American and totally misses the night school classes” and “the endless hours of ads for English-language home study kits.”

It would be interesting if How I Learned English were to be updated twenty years from now with stories from younger bilinguals, because while many writers in this collection were encouraged to cast off their old language, today there is more interest in keeping multiple languages alive. What will the English language become as more Spanish speakers learn it and more Latinos join the U.S. population?

Judging from the determination of the essayists in How I Learned English, English will continue to be the potent global language that it is today, though Spanglish might become an important secondary tongue as American English continues to fold in the words of the native languages of its population. I, for one, don’t see anything ominous in this potential development. That’s what living languages do: they change.

How I Learned English: 55 Accomplished Latinos Recall Lessons in Language and Life
Ed. Tom Miller
National Geographic Books
266 pages, $16.95

Source: New West Books and Writers

Does he spit in the bath? (and more from a medical Spanish phrase book ...)

Phrase books are a funny thing. They have to anticipate situations and then provide just the right sentence to address that situation.

Sometimes I'm just surprised at the situations that the authors of the book have anticipated.

I posted a while back about the book, "Hindi Made Easy," that my family had somehow acquired when we lived in New Delhi when I was a child. The book was one that had been given to British soldiers during the original occupation of India ... and included phrases that soon became famous in our household: "Let us set fire to the village", and "That man is a horse thief."

Shocking as it was, that book offered a glimpse into another era, and the attitudes of that time.

I wasn't prepared to be quite so surprised when I bought a Spanish medical phrase book for my friend, who is entering a new phase of her life and starting medical school next week. She wanted to be able to connect with her future patients, since she will be living, studying and working in a community where Spanish is prevalent.

But a few sentences in the book did jump out at me, and made me wonder what kinds of situations the authors were anticipating ...

Ellos rezan mucho. - They pray a lot.

Me gusta ver el cielo. - I like to see the sky.

No puede oler la medicina. - He can't smell the medicine.

El no patea la puerta. - He doesn't kick the door.

El escupe en el baño. - He spits in the bath.

Surprisingly (to me), my friend didn't think some of these were so unusual. "I could see that coming up in a psych evaluation," she noted.

And she's right - these aren't phrases that I would normally use, but perhaps they will come in handy for her. And if they do, she will be prepared ....

Are you involved in a Heritage Language Program?

Just got this from the Heritage Language Listserve .... if you are involved in a K-12 and/or community-based heritage language program, the Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Languages would like to make sure you are in their database ... (by the way, "LCTL" stands for "Less Commonly Taught Languages").

The Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Languages (the Alliance)
consists of individuals and organizations dedicated to the preservation
of heritage languages for cultural, social, educational, economic and
national security purposes. The Alliance is committed to working
together to enable heritage language speakers to attain high proficiency in
their heritage languages while also developing English literacy.

The Alliance is hosted by the Center for Applied Linguistics in
Washington DC, and is collecting profiles of heritage language programs in
K-12 and community-based settings. They are particularly hoping to enhance
the number of LCTLs represented in that database, so as to have a more
complete network in which ideas regarding heritage language programs
are exchanged and strengthened. Please learn more about the work of the
Heritage Alliance (www.cal.org/heritage) and enter a program profile at
the following link: http://www.cal.org/heritage/profiles/submit.html.
You can contact us regarding questions or suggestions related to
heritage education or the work of the Alliance through email:
heritage@cal.org. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Reaction to "Who is a Latino"

Well, that's why they call them opinion pieces ....

In addition to a number of positive responses, I also received one very negative reaction to my "Who is a Latino" piece, by someone who felt I oversimplified the issue, disrespected the reality of the Latino experience, and basically "Disney-fied" being Latino.

I can see the author's point, and obviously, generalizations about any culture can never be fully true. But I do enjoy, and observe, and write about my personal experiences in those cultures and what they mean to me.

Like many people who speak more than one language, I find I have a different personality and a different experience depending on the language or culture in which I’m operating – and part of this essay comes from these observations. My experience in Spanish is different from my experience in English – and yes, I enjoy what I call the Latinidad of that – and my experience in Italian is also quite different. In fact, I’m researching and writing on this subject to try to delve more into these issues.

One of my goals, through my writing and my work, is to counteract the negativity against other languages and cultures in this country (which has always existed, and is escalating alarmingly now). I try to do that by putting out positive messages that celebrate the contributions of all languages and cultures here.

I am the grandchild of immigrants who had all of their language and culture boiled away by the melting pot … the language disappeared, and only a few cultural traditions remained (in my family, that consisted of a few recipes and not much more).

It saddens me to see the same trend continued today, whether it’s due to xenophobic attitudes or just the overwhelming weight of societal pressure and pop culture. There's a great loss for our country in terms of our linguistic and cross-cultural expertise (very important for our future in the global market), and a huge loss for our society, which is so enriched by our combination of heritages... but there’s also a long-term personal loss as well. Many heritage language learners, including myself, have gone back to try to find the piece of their identity or soul that was lost in that process.

So I will continue to write it as I see it, and as I experience it. It’s my way of honoring the cultures that I came from, the languages that my family lost, and the multicultural and multilingual reality that I would like to see this country achieve.

Ich bin ein Latino!

I have a new catchphrase that I am going to start spreading around: "ICH BIN EIN LATINO." If we all said that, then they REALLY couldn't deport us all! (Kind of like JFK showing his solidarity for Berlin, or that story about the King of Denmark making everyone wear a yellow star of David to thwart the Nazis ... which, apparently, is not a true story, but it should be ....)

By the way, my essay on "Who is a Latino" has just been posted up on Hispanic Tips and American Taíno. As I note in that essay – and as my new catchphrase reaffirms – we could all use a little Latinidad.

Who is a Latino?

L.A. Law actress Michele Greene.

Supermodel Christy Turlington.

Wonder Woman Lynda Carter.

Baseball legend Ted Williams.

New Mexico Governor – and presidential candidate – Bill Richardson.

What do these individuals have in common?

Their American-sounding last names – and their Latino cultural heritage.

I call them "Latinos incognitos," because at first glance, they might not easily be recognized as Hispanic. With Anglo fathers and Latina mothers, the institution of marriage automatically hid the Latino heritage of all these individuals – at least on paper.

As a result, they certainly don’t “sound” Latino. They may not even “look” Latino, either. So are they really Latinos?

Because of his name and his part-Anglo heritage, Bill Richardson has been accused of being “not Latino enough.” But at the same time, he is also accused of being “too Latino,” trying to leverage his Hispanic heritage for political gain.

The reality, of course, is that Bill Richardson is Latino, and he is Anglo. The two cultures are not mutually exclusive – although they are often treated as such. When was the last time you saw a box for “multicultural” on any official form? Our society does not easily accept the middle ground between two heritages.

On official forms, as in life, bicultural Latinos are pressured to choose. And inevitably, they will receive criticism for their choices. Kevin Johnson (another Latino incognito), in his memoir, How Did You Get to Be Mexican, recalls being accused in college of “checking the box” as a Latino to get preferential treatment, but not being “Latino enough” to back it up with political activism.

Even Latinos with two Latino parents can have their Latinidad challenged. A dear friend of mine, who proudly describes herself as Puerto Rican, was often made to feel less so by her native Puerto Rican peers in New Jersey, because she wasn’t “born on the island.” Another friend who doesn't "look" Latina recalls that the only way she could convince her Hispanic classmates that she was indeed Latina was to tell them she watched Walter Mercado's horoscopes with her grandmother.

But who is a Latino, anyway?

Is it someone who is born in this country, a descendant of the original Spanish settlers?

Is a Latino someone whose family immigrated from a Spanish-speaking country and created a home here?

Can you be a Latino without a Hispanic name? Without speaking Spanish? Without a direct connection to your heritage?

What makes someone a Latino?

It’s certainly not just the name, despite the U.S. Census’ original method of counting Latinos by using the category “Hispanic surname.” Where does that leave Governor Bill Richardson or Michele Greene (who, as a bilingual singer/songwriter, recently released her second CD, Luna Roja, in both English and Spanish)?

Language helps – but you don’t even have to speak Spanish to be a Latino (and a growing number of Latinos don’t). The reverse, however, can be true – you can start to feel Latino just by speaking Spanish. There is something in the sound of the language, the words themselves, that bring Latinidad to those who choose to celebrate its beauty, its richness, and its innate poetry.

Those who learn Spanish in order to bark orders at employees or simply to fulfill a foreign language requirement are not likely to feel it, though. Here, intention is everything.

To me, being a Latino is more than just a language or a last name, or even what country you came from or can trace your roots to. Being a Latino is about a feeling, an attitude, a connection to life and culture and family and music, and a desire to experience it all to its fullest.

And to me, being a Latino means living life with sabor, and taking the time to appreciate and enjoy everything – and everyone – that makes life worth living.

And we can all use a little bit of that Latinidad.