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Reading, Inquiry, and Research PART 2 I Using What You Have Learned to Share Information

man on the other end of the phone line is telling me the classes I’ve called about are first-

rate: native speakers in charge, no more than six stu- dents per group.

"Conbersaychunal," he says, allowing the fat vow- els of his accented English to collide with the sawed- off consonants.

I tell him that will be fine, that I’m familiar with the conversational setup, and yes, I’ve studied a bit of Spanish in the past. He asks for my name and I supply it, rolling the double r in Barrientos like a pro. That’s when I hear the silent snag, the momentary hesitation I’ve come to expect at this part of the ex- change. Should I go into it again? Should I explain, the way I have to half a dozen others, that I am Gua- temalan by birth but pura gringa by circumstance? Do I add the humble ]ittle laugh I usually attach to the end of my sentence to let him know that of course I see the irony in the situation?

This will be the sixth time I’ve signed up to learn the language my parents speak to each other. It wil! be the sixth time I’ve bought workbooks and note- books and textbooks, listing 50t conjugated verbs in alphabetical order, with the hope that the subjunc- tive tense wil! finally take root in my mind.

In class, I will sit across a table from the "native 5 ho won t question why the Irish-American lawyer, or the ad ex-

ecutive of Polish descen[i has enrolled but, with a telling glance will wonder

to make of me. Look, I’ll want to say (but never do). Forget the dark skin. Ignore the

eyes. Pretend I’m a pink-cheeked, blue-eyed blonde whose name says Shannon. Because that is what a person who doesn’t innately

the difference between corre, eorra~, and corrf is supposed to look isn’t it? She certainly isn’t supposed to be earth-toned or be from mykind of background. If she happens to be named Garcfa or Lc%pez, it’s prob-

ably through marriage, or because an ancestor at the very root of her faro-

trekked across the American line three or four generations ago. I, on the other hand, came to the United States at age three, in 1963,

family and stopped speaking Spanish immediately.

PART 2 I Using What You Have Learned to Share Information 4 I Writing to Share Experiences

College-educated and seam]essly bilingual when they settled in West Texas, my parents (a psychology professor and an artist) embraced the notion of the American melting pot who]eheartedly. They declared that their two children would speak~nothing but ingles. They’d read in English, write in English, and fit into Anglo society beautifully. If they could speak the red, white, and blue without a hint of an accent, my mother and father believed, people would be forced to look beyond the obvious and see the all-American kids hidden inside the ethnic wrapping.

It sounds politically incorrect now. But Americ~ was not a hyphenated nation back then. People who called themselves Mexican-Americans or Afro-Americans were considered dangerous radicals, while law-abiding cit- izens were expected to drop their cultural baggage at the border and erase any lingering ethnic traits. Role models like Vikki Cart, Linda Ronstadt, and Raquel Welch1 had done it and become stars. So why shouldn’t

To be honest, for most of my childhood I liked being the brown girl who defied expectations. When I was seven, my mother returned my older brother and me to elementary school one week after the school year had already begun. ~Ve’d been on vacation in Washington, D.C., visiting the Smithsonian, the Capitol, and the home of Edgar Allan Poe. In the Volks- wagen, on the way home, d memorized "The Raven," and I’d recite it withi~ . melodramatic flair to any poor soul duped into sitting through my perfor- mance. At the school’s office, the registrar frowned when we arrived.

"You people. Your children are always behind, and you have the nerve to bring them in late?"

"My children," my mother answered in a dear, curt tone, "will be at the top of their classes in two weeks."

The registrar filed our cards, shaking her head. I did not live in a neighborhood with other Latinos, and the public

school I attended attracted very few. I saw the world through the clear, cruel vision of a child. To me, speaking Spanish translated into being poor. It meant waiting tables and cleaning hotel rooms. It meant being left off the cheerleading squad and receiving a condescending smile from the guidance counselor when you said you planned on becoming a lawyer or a doctor. My best friends’ names were Heidi and Leslie and Kim. They told me I didn’t seem "Mexican" to them, and I took it as a compliment. I en- joyed looking into the faces of Latino store clerks and waitresses and, yes, even our maid, and saying "yo no hablo espafiol." It made me feel superior. It made me feel American. It made me feel white.

It didn’t matter that my parents, spoke Spanish and were success- ful. They came from a different country, where everyone looked alike. In America, fitting in with the gringos was key. I didn’t want to be a Latina

~Three popular entertainers of Hispanic orgin.

Reading, Inquiry, and Research PART 2 I Using What You Have Learned to Share Information

anything. I thought that if I stayed away from Spanish, the label would

stay away from me. When t was sixteen, I told my father how much I hated being called

Mexican--not only becauseI wasn’t, but also because the word was hurled as an insult. He cringed and then he made a radical plan. That summer, instead of sending me to the dance camp in Aspen that I wanted to attend, he pointed me toward Mexico City and the Ballet Nacional.

"I want you to see how beautiful Mexico is," he said. "That way when anybody calls you Mexican, you will hold your head up."

I went, reluctantly, and found out he was right. I loved the music, the art, the architecture. He’d planted the seed of pride, but it would take years for me to figure out how to nurture it.

Back at home, my parents continued to speak only English to their

kids while speaking Spanish to each other. My father enjoyed listening to the nightly Mexican newscast on televi-

sion, so I came to understand lots of the Spanish I heard. Not by design, but by osmosis. So, by the time I graduated from college, I’d become an odd Hispanic hybrid--an English-only Latina who Could comprehend Spanish spoken at any speed but was reluctant to utter a word of it. Then came the backlash. In the two decades I’d worked hard to isolate myself from the stereotype I’d constructed in my own head, society shifted. The nation had changed its views on ethnic identity.

College professors had started teaching history through African- American and Native American eyes. Children were being told to forget about the melting pot and picture America as a multicolored quilt instead.

Hyphens suddenly had muscle, and I was left wondering Where I fit in. The Spanish language was supposedly the glue that held the new Latino-

community together. But in my case it was what kept me apart.

felt awkward among groups whose conversations flowed in and out of )anish. I’d be asked a question in Spanish and I’d have to answer in Eng-

knowing that raised a mountain of questions, t wanted to call myself t<~, finally take,pride, but it felt like a lie. So I set out to learn the

that people assumed t already knew. After my first set of lessons, which I took in a class provided by the news-

aper where I worked in Dallas, I could function in the present tense. "Hola 1o, ~qu4 tal? ~O_u~ color es tu cuaderno? E1 mfo es azul.’’2 My vocabulary

but when I spoke my tongue[elt thick inside my mouth, and if to deal with anything in the future or the past I was sunk. I sug-

to my parents that when I telephoned we should converse only in , so I could practice. But that only lasted a few short weeks. Our rela-

built in English and the essence of it got lost in the translation.

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ha/ pening? What color is your notebook? Mine is blue.

PART 2 I Using What You Have Learned to Share Information 4 I Writing to Share Experiences

By my mid-twenties I had finally come around to understanding that being a proud Latina meant show~ng the world how diverse the culture can be~ As a newspaper reporter, I met Cubans and Puerto Ricans and brown- skinned New Mexicans who could trace their families all the way back to the conquistadores. I interviewed writers and teachers and migrant work- ers, and I convinced editors to put their stories into print. Not just for the readers’ sake, but for my own. I wanted to know wheat ot}~er Latin~s had to say about their assimilation into American culture, ~nd whether speaking Spanish somehow defined them. Vghat I ]earned was that they considered Spanish their common denominator, ]inking them to one another as we]] as to their pasts. Vgith that in mind, I traveled to Guate~nala to see the place where I was born, and basked in the comfort of recognizing my own features in the faces of strangers. I felt connected, but I stil! wondered if without flawless Spanish I could ever fill the Ladno bill.

I enrolled in a three-month submersion program in Mexico and emerged ab]e to speak like a sixth-grader with a solid C average. I could read Gabrie] Garcfa M~rquez with a Spanish-English dictionary at my elbow, and I could follow ninety percent of the melodrama on any given telenovela.

But I still didn’t feel genuine. My childhood experiences were different from most of the Latinos I met. I had no quinceafiera, no abuelita teaching me to cook tamales, no radio in the house playing rancheras. I had ballet lessons, a high school trip to Europe, and a tight circle of Jewish friends. I’d never met another Latina like me, and I began to doubt that they existed.

Since then, I’ve hired tutors and bought tapes to improve my Spanish. Now I can recite Lorca. I can handle the past as wel! as the future tenses. But the irregular verbs and the subjunctive tense continue to elude me.

My Anglo friends cal! me bilingual because I can help them make ho- tel reservations over the telephone or pose a simple question to the women taking care of their children. But true speakers discover my limitations the moment I stumble over a difficult construction, and that is when I get the look. The one that raises the wall between us. The one that makes me think I’ll never rea!ly belong. Spanish has become a pedigree, a litmus test showing how far from your roots you’ve strayed. Of course, the same people who would hold my bad Spanish grammar against me wouldn’t blink at an Anglo tripping over a Spanish phrase. In fact, they’d probably be flattered that the white man or woman was giving their language a shot. They’d embrace the effort. But when I fumble, I immediately lose the p<ivflege of calling myself a full-fledged Latina. Broken Spanish doesn’t count, except to set me apart from "authentic" Latinas forever.

My bilingual friends say I make too much of it. They tell me that my ~9 Guatemalan heritage and unmistakable Mayan features are enough to le- gitimize my membership in the Latino-American club. After all, not al! Poles speak Polish. Not al! Italians speak Italian. And as this nation grows

Reading, Inquiry, and Research ~:~ PART 2 I Using What You Have Learned to Share Information

more and more Hispanic, not al! Latin6s will share one language. But I don’t believe them. I think they say those things to spare my feelings.

30 say, I haven’t met any who have fessed up, Maybe they are secretly strug- gling to fit in, the same way I am. Maybe they are hiring tutors and listen- ing to tapes behind th~ locked doors of their living rooms, just like me. I wish we all had the courage to come out of our hiding places and claim our rightful spot in the 5road Latino spectrum. Without being called hopeless gringas. Without having to offer apologies or show remorse.

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3I am here.