Catholics acknowledge Saints as well. My brother was named after Saint Jude Thaddeus because when he was born he was diagnosed with heart disease and my mother made a deal with Saint Jude Thaddeus that if he blessed him with a healthy life, she would name my brother after him. As of today my brother is a normal and healthy child just like kids his age.

Unlike Serena and her Hmong culture, I do not feel like I am completely Mexican. I’m proud
of being Mexican but I’ve never felt completely assured that I was. The main source of my anxiety and doubt is learning and speaking my language. I never dare ask any of my Mexican friends if they feel the same way as I do, mainly because

I fear that they would mock me. So I leave it alone, I keep my feelings about it bottled up. I feel ashamed to express these feelings to my parents. However, these feelings began to diminish earlier this year when I read Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, a book my English teachers assigned. After reading just a chapter of his autobiography I was in a trance, I could not take my eyes off this book. I kept making comments as I was reading, “yes… I know how that feels… it isn’t just me!” I was amazed that it was not just I going through this conflict. I felt that someone was reading my mind.

[pullquote_left]Learning Spanish would not only connect me to my roots but also help me to have a successful future. It has been proven that if you know more than one language you have a higher chance of getting a job; it opens up the opportunity of having jobs that require bilingual competence.[/pullquote_left]

I wish I had read this book sooner; this could have encouraged me to convey my feelings to my parents and open up. When Rodriguez said that

“The family’s quiet was partly
due to the fact that we as children learned more and more English, we shared fewer words with our parents,” that phrase immediately stood out to me. Whenever I speak English I have a sense of guilt and I do notice this distance with my parents. The more I explain myself in English the more I watch them, waiting for them to yell at me for speaking English.

Over and over in my head I say, “speak Spanish! Anything that will convince them that you understand and that you haven’t forgotten Spanish,” but no words come out. Anxiety starts to rise and guilt takes over. After I am done speaking in English I have a habit of gritting my teeth, feeling frustrated that I could not utter a single word in Spanish. Uttering just one word in Spanish would put me at ease, dissolving my doubts and making me feel that I am Mexican.

Learning Spanish would not only connect me to my roots but also help me to have a successful future. It has been proven that if you know more than one language you have a higher chance of getting a job; it opens up the opportunity of having jobs that require bilingual competence. According
 to sciencedaily.com, a North- western University study found that bilingual people “mastered nearly twice the number of words as the monolinguals” and this led researchers to the idea that “the bilingual advantage is likely to generalize beyond word learning to other kinds of language learning, including learning new words in one’s own language and a very basic ability to maintain verbal information.” Since Spanish was my first language I have the upper hand because I have already learned the basics, the meaning and pronunciation of words as opposed to those that have to learn from scratch.

Tags: culture, family, spotlight