Could you imagine a world where all the habitants speak the same language? Would this be the most beautiful world or the most boring? This and other questions have been going around inside my mind since the very first day that I read the poem "To live in the Borderlands Means You" by Gloria Anzaldua. In fact, every person who has lived in another country because of an immigration process has experienced the feeling of a stranger, a foreigner who has to learn new ways to live in order to survive. Yes! I do say to survive because I think that when persons are taken away from their culture and their traditions, those people really lose their identity. I can classify myself as one of those persons because I have faced what it means to leave my country and start all over again to build my future since the very beginning in a completely different country.
I left Cuba, the place where I spent all my childhood and came here only two years ago. Leaving my country meant to leave my friends, my school, my neighborhood, and all the things that until that day conformed my little world. I was not happy then, but since I came here with my mom and my stepfather, I tried to not let all the sorrow get over me. I said to myself: “you and your future are the main reasons why your mom is leaving everything behind, so you must be the one who gives support to her whenever she will need it.”
When I arrived here in the year 2005, I only knew a few words in English (hi, thanks), the basic ones. I did not know what the FCAT was, neither the SAT or any other strange test. In my country we do not have that. Therefore school for me, like every kid that came from another country at my age, became a challenge .I went to Miami Killian Senior High, where all my classes where in English with exception of ESL, but in some way I was happy and my classes were not that difficult. Day after day, I began to learn the American culture and its language. But of course I got my first bitter experience. My English teacher did not let me speak Spanish, although she knew I did not know how to express myself in English. Thus, there was one day when I was talking to her in Spanish and she told me she did not speak Spanish in front of the whole class and I told her that I did not speak English neither, so she told me “ok, if you do not know how to talk, write in a paper what you want to say to me”. She did that because she wanted me to effort myself and made me improve my English. At that moment I did not understand the reasons that encouraged her to act like that. Instead of that, I said to a close classmate to translate everything for her and she got really mad at me. I do not know now if I am grateful to her or not but I think that in some way she was not that wrong in her way of teaching. Lamentably, I did not understand that until I went to Coral Senior High and I realized that all the ESOL teachers allowed their students to speak in Spanish and they were not learning anything.
For that reason, this poem and its author made such remarkable impact on me when I read it. First of all, I really got to understand how she is feeling because of her past. We as the people who live in the borderlands (I can assume that Miami is a borderland too because we are geographically placed between United States and The Caribbean) are always looking for all the things that can say who we really are. Those things can really distinguish us from the rest of the people who share this land. Those things remind us about our past and all the memories that we have left behind. That is why we dress in a different way, eat different kind of food and listen to different music.
We are a mix (the perfect one), we are formed from the better of two cultures and at the same time, we learn to respect and love both of them. We take as many things as we can from each culture; the old ones that came with us or we just take from our parents and the new ones that we are still learning in this country ,mix them two, and like in a chemical formula we are the final product. So, aren't we good? I think we are for sure, but there are still many people that continue thinking that there is only a good race and that the people who are mixed are not as good as they are. Those ignorant people who yet do not realize that we have inside us Indian blood, black blood and white blood and that they can not just place us in a box and say we are Latin in other words immigrants, and they are Americans. Yes I am Latin and proud, but they are not native Americans either, they came through an immigration process, so there is no one in this country who has a pure blood and who can say my grandmother was not an immigrant.
Moreover because we live here in a county where there are a lot of different cultures and they are all mixed together, we take one word from this country and one from another and create a whole new language that is neither English nor Spanish but that yes, identify us as the people who live in the borderlands. Although many people have been trying sometimes to discriminate us and push us away because we do not talk the proper American English, we talk the English with an accent ,but that accent identify us and lets other people know what our roots are. I am not saying that Spanglish, as it is known or commonly called by the people who speak it frequently, is the most proper language to write and read. It is not an establish language, but it enables people to communicate among them, although they do not know how to express in English or Spanish perfectly. Perhaps, it is the one that we choose and without noticing we talk the most with our friends and close relatives. Each person living in a city like Miami should have experienced talking Spanglish or hearing it. For example, I use it in simple tasks such as: text messaging and friendly conversations. Every single day, Spanglish is becoming more popular and it is being used more frequently by the borderland community.
However, I have met yet nobody who can speak English and Spanish, or any other two languages perfectly. A person always identifies itself with his/her first language or what it’s called your mother language. In other words, that person will talk, write, or read that language almost perfect, and then she will start learning those second languages; but you will always think in your first language or the one that you use the most.
For me, it’s just amazing how the human brain can switch from one language to another. For example English to Spanish. How your tongue change its position to make the right sound for every language. However, I do not look at my accent as a bad thing that we have to get rid of; I look at it as the thing that lets other people know I am Cuban. Maybe I am wrong but for me everything that reminds my roots and my culture is good to have it with me. Even though, because of your accent sometimes people who only speak English will not understand what you are trying to say. Nevertheless, that not only happen between people from different cultures, it is happening here in the United States among its different regions because all of them have their own accent.
You are the only one who can set your own borderlands. Nobody has the right to tell you who you are and what language you must or can speak. I do not think there is a law that refers about languages and if it exists, who can state that it is right established. No one! Only you can look forward and find who you really are because of your roots, but more important, who you want to be.
I left Cuba, the place where I spent all my childhood and came here only two years ago. Leaving my country meant to leave my friends, my school, my neighborhood, and all the things that until that day conformed my little world. I was not happy then, but since I came here with my mom and my stepfather, I tried to not let all the sorrow get over me. I said to myself: “you and your future are the main reasons why your mom is leaving everything behind, so you must be the one who gives support to her whenever she will need it.”
When I arrived here in the year 2005, I only knew a few words in English (hi, thanks), the basic ones. I did not know what the FCAT was, neither the SAT or any other strange test. In my country we do not have that. Therefore school for me, like every kid that came from another country at my age, became a challenge .I went to Miami Killian Senior High, where all my classes where in English with exception of ESL, but in some way I was happy and my classes were not that difficult. Day after day, I began to learn the American culture and its language. But of course I got my first bitter experience. My English teacher did not let me speak Spanish, although she knew I did not know how to express myself in English. Thus, there was one day when I was talking to her in Spanish and she told me she did not speak Spanish in front of the whole class and I told her that I did not speak English neither, so she told me “ok, if you do not know how to talk, write in a paper what you want to say to me”. She did that because she wanted me to effort myself and made me improve my English. At that moment I did not understand the reasons that encouraged her to act like that. Instead of that, I said to a close classmate to translate everything for her and she got really mad at me. I do not know now if I am grateful to her or not but I think that in some way she was not that wrong in her way of teaching. Lamentably, I did not understand that until I went to Coral Senior High and I realized that all the ESOL teachers allowed their students to speak in Spanish and they were not learning anything.
For that reason, this poem and its author made such remarkable impact on me when I read it. First of all, I really got to understand how she is feeling because of her past. We as the people who live in the borderlands (I can assume that Miami is a borderland too because we are geographically placed between United States and The Caribbean) are always looking for all the things that can say who we really are. Those things can really distinguish us from the rest of the people who share this land. Those things remind us about our past and all the memories that we have left behind. That is why we dress in a different way, eat different kind of food and listen to different music.
We are a mix (the perfect one), we are formed from the better of two cultures and at the same time, we learn to respect and love both of them. We take as many things as we can from each culture; the old ones that came with us or we just take from our parents and the new ones that we are still learning in this country ,mix them two, and like in a chemical formula we are the final product. So, aren't we good? I think we are for sure, but there are still many people that continue thinking that there is only a good race and that the people who are mixed are not as good as they are. Those ignorant people who yet do not realize that we have inside us Indian blood, black blood and white blood and that they can not just place us in a box and say we are Latin in other words immigrants, and they are Americans. Yes I am Latin and proud, but they are not native Americans either, they came through an immigration process, so there is no one in this country who has a pure blood and who can say my grandmother was not an immigrant.Moreover because we live here in a county where there are a lot of different cultures and they are all mixed together, we take one word from this country and one from another and create a whole new language that is neither English nor Spanish but that yes, identify us as the people who live in the borderlands. Although many people have been trying sometimes to discriminate us and push us away because we do not talk the proper American English, we talk the English with an accent ,but that accent identify us and lets other people know what our roots are. I am not saying that Spanglish, as it is known or commonly called by the people who speak it frequently, is the most proper language to write and read. It is not an establish language, but it enables people to communicate among them, although they do not know how to express in English or Spanish perfectly. Perhaps, it is the one that we choose and without noticing we talk the most with our friends and close relatives. Each person living in a city like Miami should have experienced talking Spanglish or hearing it. For example, I use it in simple tasks such as: text messaging and friendly conversations. Every single day, Spanglish is becoming more popular and it is being used more frequently by the borderland community.
However, I have met yet nobody who can speak English and Spanish, or any other two languages perfectly. A person always identifies itself with his/her first language or what it’s called your mother language. In other words, that person will talk, write, or read that language almost perfect, and then she will start learning those second languages; but you will always think in your first language or the one that you use the most.
For me, it’s just amazing how the human brain can switch from one language to another. For example English to Spanish. How your tongue change its position to make the right sound for every language. However, I do not look at my accent as a bad thing that we have to get rid of; I look at it as the thing that lets other people know I am Cuban. Maybe I am wrong but for me everything that reminds my roots and my culture is good to have it with me. Even though, because of your accent sometimes people who only speak English will not understand what you are trying to say. Nevertheless, that not only happen between people from different cultures, it is happening here in the United States among its different regions because all of them have their own accent.
You are the only one who can set your own borderlands. Nobody has the right to tell you who you are and what language you must or can speak. I do not think there is a law that refers about languages and if it exists, who can state that it is right established. No one! Only you can look forward and find who you really are because of your roots, but more important, who you want to be.
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