It would be so much easier if I learned it as a kid.

Many people believe just being Latino guarantees you access to the Spanish language. And so it feels like a double diss when you not only don’t feel like you know Spanish but then the reaction is disbelief.

What do you mean you don’t know Spanish? Aren’t you Puerto Rican?

Why didn’t you learn it? At all? Better? Fluently?

There are many reasons why someone may not be able to pass their language down from parent to child, generation to generation, etc. Here are just a few.

Context

Language Trauma

Language discrimination was and is an issue in terms of employment, access and safety throughout much of the world and that includes the United States. This can take the form of implicit biases that judge people with accents unfamiliar to the listener as “unintelligent”. But let me be clear, EVERYONE HAS AN ACCENT.

Language shame is then a result of this discrimination/biases, in public sectors as much as in school. When a school system assesses success and ability based on a single language (that you are still acquiring), it is normal to feel insecure and ashamed.

Parents, grandparents, and other friends and family may have experienced these societal limitations and want to spare their loved ones from similar discrimination and shame. Unfortunately, by limiting access to their home language, many people have still felt language discrimination and shame, only by another language group. In these instances, it can be especially complex because the othering stems from the language group you identify with, raising questions about belonging. Am I Latina enough? Puerto Rican enough? X enough?

Limited Resources

Language transfer is not inherent; it is not inevitable. One must dedicate time and resources to teach and practice languages, especially if the language is one other than the dominant language in the society that you are living in. This means that there is a level of privilege to being able to teach and learn your home language.

When I was growing up in the 90s, there was far less “easily” accessible bilingual content. Books were limited, and shows on TV, forget about it. At best, when you watched something in the States, you might have it dubbed in Spanish and have to deal with mismatched lip-syncing, not to mention that there was no consideration of linguistic diversity, so listening to Spanish was not necessarily practicing the Puerto Rican Spanish I wanted to connect with.

Now, we have far more accessible resources in books that you can order overnight and shows/songs you can stream at any moment (shout out to Atención Atención for being my soundtrack to the park with my goddaughter). But we are also more globalized than ever, so community, as a resource, is limited unless you are SUPER intentional about making time and taking the trip to be in those spaces.

Limited Awareness

And then there is language-learning awareness. (Deep breath)

I have heard far too many stories about how experts, teachers, doctors, speech-language pathologists, etc., recommended focusing on English because the child “had speech delays” or other “issues.” We will compassionately forgive these experts and the many children they misled to stop practicing their home language because of the misguided advice given through their monolingual lens. My family, like many families, received this feedback, and we, like many, pulled back the Spanish practice at home to focus on English. The “oh so important” English.

But now, we have far too much research to understand the specific needs and opportunities of multilingual families, AND STILL WE ARE HEARING THESE RECOMMENDATIONS without a critical exploration of how to work with bilingual families to foster home language maintenance and add to their linguistic repertoire.

Now, to be fair, there are many educators, speech-language pathologists, and doctors who are working to understand their craft through a multilingual lens. There has been a lot of work done in recent years to push back against monolingual norms, shout out to bilingual speechie, respect the dialect, topit…

And, there is still more work to do.

Practice

So then the question becomes, now that we are here, what do we do about it?

1. Create empathy by learning your family’s why.
2. Find a Community that understands your unique strengths and challenges.
3. Start today.

Conclusion

Sure, as a child, it would have been better, mostly because it would be done by now… but also because as children we are shameless (in the best way). But now is what we’ve got, and so by starting today, you are one step closer to your goal, your language, and the connections you wish to have.

PS: Gracias, mami y papi, por siempre hacer lo mejor que pudieron en todos los momentos, tanto antes como ahora. Gracias a la comunidad (mis suegritos [Sammy y Lucía] y muchos más) que los ayudó a crear esos espacios para que Crysti y yo pudiéramos practicar (aunque solo fuera la destreza de escuchar en los momentos en que nos sentíamos más tímidos). Aunque los sistemas no siempre apoyan a nuestras comunidades, nosotros nos ayudamos a mantener vivos la cultura y el idioma, de una u otra manera.

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