Bravo 1 Kristie Bravo ENGL 1101 Professor Hinnant September 24, 2013 The Spanglish Life My memories as a child

are sort of a blur, I do not remember much about it. However on more of the academic side, I remember right before I went into pre-school my mom sat down with me at home and taught me how to identify objects with pictures and how to write my name. The reason for this was because since I was Hispanic the school felt the need to test me to distinguish whether or not I needed to be in an ESL (English as a Second Language) class. My mom did not want that for me because she knew it would not help me in the long run. My mom took the time out of her day to teach me everything she knew just so I would not be placed in an ESL class. All that work paid off because I placed in a regular class rather than the ESL class. This was one of the many challenges I faced with literacy because of my ethnicity. To begin, I learned Spanish before English. As a child I knew I had to learn English because that is the language spoken in America, also because my brother would come home and talk to me about how school was for him. At a young age I was learning two languages at once. I practiced English and Spanish in two different environments. The expectation of only speaking English affected the speaking aspect of my English literature journey. At school I was expected to only speak English with my teachers and classmates, thats how I improved my English. On the other hand, when I would go home after school it was a whole different environment where I was expected to only speak Spanish. My parents thought it was very crucial for me to remember

where I am from and not change who I am, so it was important for them to teach me the Spanish language and about my culture. Unfortunately for my parents, I believe I have been more influenced by the American culture rather than the Hispanic culture because I spent almost my whole life at school. I was at school for almost half the day learning about the American culture speaking English interacting with the other kids, so it is common for me to be more influenced by the American culture. At school they would serve food that, for Americans, would be normal, however for me it was strange because I only ate Hispanic food at home. There would be the most usual foods like tomato soup, macaroni and cheese, burgers, chicken sandwiches, and chicken tenders, but in my household those were not the usual foods you would find. In my house there would be Hispanic originated food, for example ceviche, which is made of fish, water, tomatoes, cilantro, onions, ketchup, and mustard. We would also eat rice with chicken, biche de pescado which is similar to a stew made of fish, and locro de papa which is basically a potato soup. Musically I was more influenced by the Hispanic culture. At home we would listen to Salsa, Merengue, and Bachata. I did not typically listen to American oriented music like my brother did, he was more into Rap and Hip-Hop maybe even a little Pop. Although I may have been more influenced by the American culture, I am still fluent in Spanish as much as I am in English. I think learning both languages simultaneously at such a young age gave me the benefit of being bilingual. My mother would always remind me that I would have more opportunities as I got older because I knew two languages and that I should be proud of it. Eventually both languages came to me naturally and I knew when it was appropriate to speak either language. Since I was a child I learned to be very obedient. There is a stereotype that Hispanic parents can be horrifically strict, and in some cases, like mine, this stereotype is true. Being

Bravo 3 obedient is key to be on good terms with any parent, no matter where they are from. With that said, I believe this was a disadvantage for me in the writing aspect of literature. Since I was so accustomed to obeying the rules or following instruction, I now have a mindset of always needing a guideline for everything. For example, at home there was a scheduled time for everything. There would be a set time for when to clean, when meals were served, and when to do homework everything was regulated and there was no freedom. This was the worst struggle I had in elementary school because I was not accustomed to have freedom, whether it was an art project or creative writing. Most children were great at it, having amazing imagination, but not in my case. I can honestly say, even to this day, that I am not very fond of creative writing. Creative writing was a nightmare for me as a child. There was a time when I had to write a creative story in the fourth grade for as a test. Creative writing has some structure to an extent but the rest is all on you and your creativity. I believe the prompt was about writing an adventure you had in a hot air balloon, and with my close minded self, at the time, wrote about using the hot air balloon to go to a certain place and having an adventure there. After essay day, our teacher had mini conferences with the students who did poorly on the exam. She explained to me that the prompt was asking me to write an adventure inside the hot air balloon, like imagining the hot air balloon was a forest and having many adventures. I would have never thought of it that way because I was not as open-minded or creative as I should have been at that age. This all goes back to how being obedient in a Hispanic household was no option; you can say it was a natural instinct. I was so accustomed to having structure and being told what to do that I did not have a mind of my own when it came to writing or anything in general. I still struggle with this today but I am definitely improving with the help of brainstorming and occasionally free writing before an essay helping my creative juices flow.

An advantage I would say that I have with a Hispanic background would be that I am able to read and decipher words by identifying Latin root words and connecting them to Spanish words to translate in English. This helped a lot my senior year in high school when I was studying for the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test). As I was studying vocabulary and Latin root words from my convenient SAT prep book, I noticed a lot of the Latin roots looked strangely familiar to some Spanish words. For example the Latin root word carn means flesh or meat and the word for meat in Spanish is carne. Another example would be the Latin root word dict, which means to say or speak and the Spanish word for that would be dictar. This technique not only helped with word meanings but also understanding text. As I got older reading was more challenging because teachers expected us to analyze instead of just read words. Without knowing the meaning of most of the words in the text, there was no possibility for me to understand the deeper meaning of the text. Although this technique made reading easier for me, it is still a challenge today because the more books you read, the more you learn new words or new meanings so it is a never-ending process for me. I admit, having to learn two completely different languages at once was a challenge, but I overcame it. I used both languages to my advantage so that I can grow as a better writer, reader, and speaker. It is because of my ethnicity that I read a certain way or speak a certain way, but that is what makes me who I am today. I learned from a very young age that the struggle is no excuse to give up it is just a motivator to strive and be successful in whatever you set your mind to do.