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Jaclyn Fuerte
Professor Adler
English 100
October 5 2015
Chicano Dialect or Broken English?
I grew up speaking Chicano English, a clash of English, Spanish, and grammatically incorrect
sentences, attitudes, and culture all embedded in to the English language. Sitting in a cold chair facing
hard desk and an English teacher who could not possibly understand how Phrases like Its mines or I
didnt do nothing where so common and correct when my cousins and I played as children in the front
yard. The instructors in school taught us to read and write but even with these resources my English was
still as most people would say Broken.
As I grew older I began to see my neighborhood as a reservation where kids Were
expected to be stupid (Alexie 13.) People outside of my neighborhood only saw us as bad kids or
uneducated people. They saw the stereotypes that were set for my community. Much like in Freedom
Writers the teachers only chose to see the youth of long beach as violent criminals. They did not bother to
really teach them anything because they believed the students were too dumb. They could not retain
anything or understand concepts in general. With expectations that students would not amount to anything
in class, many did not. With Labels so prevalent all over my, I could not look anywhere without seeing
how we were being mocked in films, television sitcoms, or in the news labeling me as illiterate. After the
constant loss of dignity my community faced I began to feel ashamed of how I spoke and who I was.
As I began to leave Boyle heights more often to explore different areas of Los Angeles. I noticed
how different people spoke. Asian Americans, African Americans, and other Americans all had their own
types of literacy. Literacy is not just reading and writing it encompasses many things. The ability to
understand and communicate is a major aspect of literacy. Other factors may effect literacy like

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community and culture .They each group was a mash up of different cultures and English but on a
grander scale they were the same. Each English shared the same foundations that brought them where
they had begun. Each had a Mother tongue that affected the English language and made it more intimate
and A different sort of English that relates to family talk. (Tan 634.) An English that only people of that
group really understand.
Initially I believed the way one spoke was just the act of speaking however I was wrong. To open
your mouth in the different Englishes meant you had confessed your parents, your youth, your school,
your salary, your self-esteem, and, alas, your future. (Baldwin 2.) Whenever you spoke people thought
they knew your whole life story. When people hear Chicano English and assume that what they are
hearing is the accent of someone whose first language isnt English.(Fought, Carmen.Talking with mi
Gente.PBS.org. 2001) more stereotypes are planted with in society for example, when I would meet new
people they would eventually ask me if English was my second. When I spoke or read people felt they
knew If I was a foreign. I didnt want to stand out and betray my people by not speaking Chicano
English but I also did not want to participate in the negativity and labeling society connected it to.
Every day on my way to school I passed a high school a street away from me.
On the walls of the high school was a very large mural that depicted the Latino population in different
eras of time. The mural started off with men and women depicted as Aztec warriors strong and with their
heads held high. The mural gradually continued into Latinos being beaten by the police with batons. It
then ended with terrified people painted in grey and words that read slaves to ignorance floating over
their heads. This mural represented how I felt in my ability to accept the growth mindset. The mural
depicted both mindsets the Aztec era was the growth mindset and the fix mindset were the people who
were enslaved to ignorance. I was not entirely sure which one pertained to me yet. After all both
seemed to be engraved in my culture. However the closed mindset seemed to be prevailing in my
community. Conflicted between two points of view I waited.

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The majority of the people in Boyle heights, myself included lived to meet the standers of society.
They lost their passion for thinking because they Encountered a world that s to educate them for
conformity and obedience only (Bell Hooks) I conformed to the academic atmosphere of my peers. I did
not participate in the learning process because I was conforming to what my peers thought was right. The
world had stripped me of my thinking and that of my peers, I became a passive learner. Learning became
a chore and I only continued with subjects I understood ignoring more intimidating subjects. The shame I
had for my English forced me into the growth mindset. I did not want to continue feeling like I was
illiterate. I wanted to be heard and take action in my educational growth. I needed to be take seriously I
would however not be if I did not change the way I spoke. I was just as capable as any other student but I
was dismissed in class by teachers when I had something to say. I could not change societal standards but
I could change the way I was perceived. I began to speak clearly, I read more books, I looked up words I
had never encountered before using them every chance I had, I listened to more educated people I tried to
follow exactly how the words glided of their lips so that I could mimic the same sound later, and I
watched television news reports to hear the news anchors speak correctly.
After I began my journey to better my English I realized that it did not change what I know about
society it is still the same as it was in the past. It did however change the way I felt about myself and how
I looked at the world. I figured you could change the world but only through yourself. A perfect portrayal
of this would be through Freedom Writers, The students in Ms.Gruwells class decided to stop
participating in the senseless acts of violence against other races through reading literature and writing.
They used reading and literature as a form of escape much like jimmy Baca. An example of this would be
writing was the water that cleansed the wound and fed the parched root of my heart (Baca11.) this quote
demonstrates just how writing can affect an individuals life. It illustrates how through yourself you can
change how you see things outside of yourself making it a better place one step at a time.
Although, all throughout highs school I tried to break free from the accompanied labels
associated to my speech I could never full assimilated with society. The Chicano English I grew up

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speaking molded me in to different aspects of myself. Yes, my experience was shaped by reading, writing,
research, and critical thinking but there were also other factors my family, culture and different attitudes.
Aspect like these have molded me in to a person that needed to have a growth mindset and an expanded
vocabulary as well as real world experience and a closed mindset to enable the search for literacy in my
own life. I needed to have a closed mindset because I feel I would not have been able to cope with all the
negativity melded in to my speech. The growth mindset would later help me understand myself better
and free myself from societies grip. The way literacy helped was it led me in to myself to be able find the
person I am today. Not learning proper English in school was a blessing in disguise because it
demonstrated how broad literacy can be and what is truly engulfed.