Being born into a mixed racial background presents a few challenges while growing up. Some of us have legal differences like an inescapably ethnic-sounding name or physical differences (such as complexion or racially distinct hair), that make our mixed-race background quite obvious to our peers. When one is born into these circumstances, hiding our ethnicities becomes impractical, whether we are ready to embrace them or not. All of this becomes further complicated if your mixed backgrounds don't even speak the same language.
That's the part that affects me: different languages. Many of us can relate to having grandparents that mumble or use words that have long since fallen out of common usage, but what if they also don't speak English? My great-grandparents (in particular) were baffling at times. Thankfully, my grandfather resorted to English after it became painfully obvious how little Spanish we understood once our Spanish-speaking parent had permanently departed.
The problem with coming from a Spanish-speaking culture and knowing very little Spanish is your isolation from entire sections of your family. Interacting with cousins (as in offspring of a parent's sibling) is nearly impossible if you don't speak the same language — disputes always require bilingual mediation. Although there are many relatives that can speak English, they prefer Spanish because it's what's more comfortable for them. And who can blame them? Isn't that what we all do: default to the tongue we are most comfortable with? Then there are the endless uncles and aunts and cousins twice removed by marriage who genuinely don't speak anything but Spanish because they feel like Spanish is all they need to get by. To each their own, but we simply agree to disagree.
Somewhere along the line, I decided to re-learn as much Spanish as possible. "It is my first language, so I should at least be proficient," is what I told myself, and yet it was anything but automatic. I started watching boxing matches in Spanish. I insisted on interacting with Spanish speaking servers in restaurants in nothing but Spanish, fumbling my words, and making egregious errors along the line, but still learning.
That all changed when I became an exchange student. I was in a country with a remarkable dearth of Spanish-speakers, yet was surrounded by exchange students from Spanish-speaking countries, who valued my terrible Spanish as their lone lifeline of communication. As my year on exchange unfolded, they helped me with my Spanish and I helped them with their English. We forged strong, enduring bonds as a result, admiring the progress we had all made — which was possible because I knew another language, regardless of how limited my knowledge was at the start.
The need to know multiple languages in the 21st Century is only becoming more amplified as we move forward. Knowing that my wife and I only use Spanish part-time in our home, we decided to use another tact to expose our children: Spanish Language audio on home movies. Sure, Harry Potter in Spanish sounds odd to those of us expecting British accents, but what if it's the only way you've ever seen it? Logically, my children would have no other frame of reference since my wife and I have maintained complete control: foolproof!
That's what we told ourselves until my daughter was able to dispel the myth. She was three, and my wife was putting on a movie for her. A movie was chosen and was in the process of loading the menu when my daughter had an additional request:
"I want them to say it right," she requested firmly.
"Say it right," her mother repeated absently, "of course, mija." She then put the movie on in Spanish without another thought.
"No!" My daughter was beside herself. "I want them to say it right," she repeated forcefully, emphasizing the final three words.
Slightly confused, my wife did the only thing that seemed to fit our three-year-old daughter's request, borne from such limited vocabulary: she changed the audio to English. The effect on my daughter's mood was instant.
"Thank you, Mama!" She beamed. "Now they're saying it right!"
Duly noted. She may not have been able to articulate the differences between English and Spanish, but she was acutely aware of them and knew which one she preferred, even at three.
