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OBSERVATIONS
Mother Tongue
By Winter D. Prosapio
“Speak in English,” my mother tells me. I barely realize I’ve slipped into Spanish with my grandmother. We’re out shopping, and my grandmother, who at 93 is fully bilingual but hard of hearing, is in need of new bifocals.
Somehow, as I’m nearly shouting the information to my grandmother from the soft-spoken technician, I go from, “She says they need to measure the width” to “tus ojos, porque estos son muy grande.”
My mother’s admonishment has nothing to do with speaking English because this is the United States, and we speak English here. I’m a fifth-generation Texan, thanks to my grandmother’s people. They were working the land here long before my Anglo grandfather had arrived on Ellis Island. The Hispanic side of my family has been fully bilingual for generations. We speak in English as a matter of courtesy to those who know only one language. It’s considered rude in our family to speak Spanish in front of people who may not understand what we’re saying.
Still, speaking Spanish feels completely different than speaking English—and I’m not even fluent in Spanish. I know border Spanish, granddaughter Spanish. It’s just enough to get by in family gatherings and excursions across the border for corn tortillas.
For me, English has been the way I express everything, from poetry to irony. I’d be hard-pressed to tell a joke in Spanish, let alone manage a clever play on words. My mother was a stickler for correct word usage, and I owe her a debt I can never repay for a great vocabulary and my ability to speak in clear, accent-free English.
So why does Spanish feel like warm chocolate coating my vocal chords, sweet and smooth? Especially when my command of the language is so bad?
When I’m speaking Spanish and specific words are lost to my brain, when I can’t figure out how to say “frames” or “purple,” I am forced to toss in the English words like rocks in the flowing stream. They land with a thump in the middle of my Spanish sentence, the water of words rushing around it. If my sister (who is fluent in both languages) talks too quickly, or when I try to keep up with an announcer on Spanish-language TV, I fall hopelessly behind, grasping at the few key words for purchase.
Yet with my grandmother, even my broken Spanish seems so much more loving that it slips out instinctively. Spanish is forever the language of family, and it’s a bond that won’t break. In our family we call our children “mi vida”—my life. It’s much more common to say “mija”—a slurring of the words “my” and “daughter”—than “hija”—which is merely “daughter.” The diminutive is sweeter, too, with the word “chiquitita” meaning little girl, but from my grandmother’s and mother’s lips an intense love forms like a wave on their tongues, and instead the word has always meant “my precious, precious, little one.” To this day, if I hear this word, I expect a hug at any moment.
Out of respect for the technician, I nearly shout, in English this time, to my hard-of-hearing grandmother. I explain how long it will take for them to make the changes she needs in her new glasses. She nods and thanks the technician for her help—in English, of course—and notes that she’ll be happy not to have the headaches the old pair was giving her.
We leave and, as I help her into the car, I slip into the embrace of Spanish again. This time, there is no one to feel left out.
“Aqui, estamos agusto.” Here, we are at home.
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Winter D. Prosapio frequently writes essays for Texas Co-op Power on family matters.
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