Jaimes 1

Ricardo Jaimes
Instructor: Malcolm Campbell
UWRT 1101
September 28, 2014
Literacy in Language
Here, its for you, said my father as he handed me the phone. Its your abuela.
I took the phone and pressed it to my ear. I could faintly hear my grandmother and some
other relatives speaking to each other. It was quick, feint chatter. Then there was silence. I didnt
know what to saymore accurately, I didnt know how to say anything. I was only eight at the
time, and I didnt know even a bit of Spanish. I just stood there, silently with the phone pressed
to my face. What could have been mere seconds felt like a full hour of complete silence. Never
before have had I felt so awkward inside my own house. I looked towards my father, waiting for
him to say something. I didnt know how to say anything in Spanish, let alone how to say happy
birthday to my grandmother.
There were two sides to my family: the English speaking side and the Spanish speaking
side. My father grew up in Mexico and then moved to the United States to marry my mother and
become a citizen. When I was younger, I was mainly exposed to English. I never had the chance
to involuntarily learn Spanish. I cant necessarily say that I felt left out, but I did feel inferiorto
those children who were bilingual and to those who at least knew the basics of Spanish. In
elementary school, I was put into a bilingual class. Everything that was taught in English was
also taught in Spanish. It was a small class with only about twelve kids in itmost of whom

Jaimes 2

came from a Spanish background. I was an overall good student, but for some reason the Spanish
taught never stuck with me. Basic things like conjugation and sentence structure still gave me
trouble. I felt as though I had gained no real experience with the language other than my
development of a good accent and proper pronunciation. This troubled me because it seemed
everyone in the class had a fair grasp on the language.
Towards the end of elementary school, I moved to North Carolina and took a break from
my Spanish classes. During the summers I worked with my father. He was a small business
owner of a landscaping company, but since the business was small, he had to work on the field as
well. All of his employees were originally from Central America. When I went to work, I had a
lot of trouble communicating with other employees. But after a while, things like, Pasa la
cuchillo [Pass the knife]! or Abra la puerta [Open the door]! started to become more natural.
I learned a lot of informal commands, and I had a chance to just listen to native speakers talk. It
was an experience that wasnt necessarily comfortable. Often times I found myself sitting around
in a circle during breaks with them, trying to figure out what they were saying. Conversations
usually involved plans for the weekend and vulgar or rude humor. A scenario would usually go
like this:
Sergio, cuando tena veinte aos como usted, era ms fuerte. A m parece tan dbil.
Qu pasado? [Sergio, when I was twenty years old like you, I was strong. You seem so weak.
What happened?]
Cllate, guey. Usted es tan viejo, que no me importa que usted dice. [Shut up, dumbass.
Youre so old, that I dont even care what you say.]

Jaimes 3

Sometimes, even my dad chimed in with the trash talk. It didnt really bother me. Most of
the time it wasnt meant to be hurtful necessarily. It was just their manner of talking. And even
those words helped me become develop a more natural accent and comprehension.
It wasnt until high school that I decided to try again with the language. I had taken
Spanish I & Spanish II, which were basically introductory and review courses. However, this
time around it was different. Instead of me feeling like the one who was behind, it felt like
everyone else was struggling and I was the one who was ahead. Most people thought I was a
native speaker when I spoke. However, this was far from the truth. I had begun to understand the
language a lot better, but I wasnt close to being fluent. The classes themselves didnt convince
me that I could become fluent. The teacher didnt seem intense enough. But I decided that I
would continue with my learning of Spanish until high school ended. I would go all the way to
AP Spanish.
After Spanish I & II, I made my way to Spanish III. The teacher for that class was the
only advanced language Spanish teacher for the school. So if I did work my way up to AP
Spanish, I would have to see that teacher every day. He was a shorter man, with large, thick
framed glassesthe kind you see hipsters wear. He dressed very cleanalways wearing fitted
clothing and nice dress shoes. He referred to himself as profe (the Spanish word for professor).
At first, I did not like the teacher. I didnt like the way he would make us speak in front of the
class. I didnt like the way he forced kids to do something they werent comfortable with for a
grade.

Formatted: Font: Italic

Often times his classes would go like this: Clase! Hoy, vamos a hablar sobre su fin de
la semana. As que, Ricardo, qu hiciste ayer? [Class! Today we are going to talk about your

Formatted: Font: Italic, Spanish (Mexico)

Formatted: Font: Italic
Formatted: Font: Italic, Spanish (Mexico)
Formatted: Font: Italic, English (United States)

weekends. So, Ricardo, what did you do yesterday?]

Formatted: English (United States)

Jaimes 4

The question was followed by a prolonged silence. I didnt know what to sayusually no
one does. The question could be so simple, but once asked to say something in front of the class,
the task seemed impossible. With the amount of Spanish I knew, I came up with a broken, but
understandable sentence.
Ayer, fui a la cine para ver una pelcula se llama The Dark Knight Rises. Yo crea que
la pelcula era muy bueno. [Yesterday, I went to the theater to watch a movie called The Dark
Knight Rises. I thought that the movie was good.]

Formatted: Spanish (Mexico)

Formatted: Font: Italic
Formatted: Font: Italic, Spanish (Mexico)
Formatted: Font: Italic
Formatted: Font: Italic, Spanish (Mexico)

Forcing native English speakers to speak nothing but Spanish is uncomfortable.

However, I did acknowledge the teachers finesse with teaching. As I came to realize, the most
important part of learning another language is coming out of the comfort zone in order to gain
experience.
I eventually found myself in my senior year in an AP Spanish class. At this point, I was
sure that I wanted to learn Spanish. It was for many reasons: to communicate with family; to
work efficiently with coworkers; or even to feed my own ego. I always have admired
multilingual citizens and, at that time, I realized that I wanted to become one. But the only way
to become fluent in a language is to immerse yourself in it, and force yourself to speak it. These
experiences have contributed to my decision to take my learning of Spanish to the next level. I
now plan to study abroad in a Spanish speaking country to improve my Spanish literacy. To
think that this all began with an effort to fit into my culture, but now I want to do this for myself.

Formatted: Font: Italic, English (United States)

Formatted: English (United States)
Formatted: Indent: First line: 0.5"