Anzaldula Blog #1

Q: write about a time when you felt that someone in authority tried to silence you or criticized the way you spoke.

Well i wouldn't say criticized but they made me feel beneath them. Not up to par, or they're standards. You see my father is full blooded Mexican from Mexico. And my mother is half Yugoslavian and half Nicaraguan. Growing up my father never taught me Spanish, and it had definitely affected the way i communicate with my family and my peers. I be live it has cost me some opportunities. Its hard to go around feeling like on or the other. I look Mexican but don't speak Spanish. My first language is English and yet i look another race in other peoples eyes. Everywhere i go and someone talks to me in Spanish i can only understand some of what they are saying and ill say 99 percent of the time they ask me, "How come you don't know Spanish and your Mexican"? I always feel not whole or like I'm missing out. Especially when i visit my grandma and Grandpa because they don't know a lick of English. We have to play the guessing game sometimes. It hurts my heart, and i wish i was closer with them. And i know if i could communicate with them that could be possible. I know its never to late but as you get older its a little harder to learn and absorb a new language. So i guess i wouldn't say an authority made me feel inadequate, no it was my peers and strangers that made me feel this way. Maybe i should just learn Spanish!