No pasa nada. Don’t worry. I whisper these words of encouragement to myself as I stroll through customs at SJO airport in Costa Rica. For weeks, I’ve been preparing for this, running common phrases through my head and trying to translate my thoughts. I’m back in Latin America for the first time in a decade, and while I’m thrilled, I’m dreading the humiliation I’ll feel once my lack of linguistic skills are exposed.
The border control agent looks at me, reads my name, and assumes I’m a fluent hispanohablante. She fires off the usual questions – why am I in Costa Rica? How long am I staying? What is my profession? I don’t miss a beat as I answer her questions in relatively comprehensible Spanish with my slight Uruguayan accent.
Then she mutters something I don’t understand and the gig is up and I regretfully ask her if she speaks English. She can’t hide her look of surprise.
I know this look all too well. With a name like mine and a face like mine, it’s fair to assume I’m a fluent Spanish speaker. But I’m not, and that fills me with shame.
I’m not proud that I’ve lost my once native-fluency of my dad’s language. I’ve tried language apps, conversing with friends and family in Spanish, and listening to Spanish music. I had a Spanish boyfriend and lived in Spain. I just can’t tap into the bilingual potential I ought to have, likely due to facing discrimination during my childhood.
I’m not alone in this struggle. Many of my friends who were born to Latino parents also didn’t learn their parents’ native tongue. I have Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban friends who speak less Spanish than I do.
A major part of the diaspora for Latinos across the States is the loss of language in order to assimilate. Retaining their language of origin can be dangerous as violent crimes against immigrants are all too common.
Latinos who don’t speak English are constantly harassed in the States, and Latinos who don’t speak Spanish are considered frauds. I’m filled with regret when people judge my Latinidad because of my inability to naturally speak Spanish. It’s damaging to expect Latinos in the States to have language acquisition and is a form of harmful erasure.
My Uruguayan dad taught himself English by reading a section of The New York Times a day and translating each word with his Spanish-English dictionary. I wish I had his dedication to language learning. He speaks six languages fluently and can converse in many others, much to my amazement. Learning English was a survival tactic for him after he escaped the violent military dictatorship in Uruguay and trekked up to Mexico.
My mom is a gringa. She was fluent in Spanish long before she met my dad and even worked as a translator. I was born in California but we moved to Uruguay when I was three. My parents knew they wanted to raise me in Uruguay so they spoke to me almost exclusively in Spanish and hired a Mexican nanny to take care of me as they both worked during the day.
My mom tells me that in Uruguay my Spanish was on par with all the Uruguayan kids in my preschool class. My entire life had been in Spanish, until we moved to Kansas a year later for the birth of my sister (who is fluent in Spanish and French).
When I was eight, I was in public school for the first time in my life when I decided to stop speaking Spanish. I used to blame my Spanish teacher at the time, who I thought failed me because I refused to lose my Uruguayan accent. She was a gringa and couldn’t comprehend that there were many ways to speak Spanish.
I didn’t realize it then, but I stopped speaking Spanish in order to remain safe. Kansas wasn’t a very friendly place to be an interracial kid. I didn’t have to learn Spanish in order to survive as my dad did with English. Instead, I had to forget it.
People would say awful racist things about my family, including the insult ‘spic,’ which my dad would say didn’t apply to our family as we weren’t from Central America. I’ve never resented being Latina, but I couldn’t handle the hate that was literally being spat in my face on a daily basis.
My old man was wrong – ’spic’ is a slur used towards anyone of Hispanic descent, which we are, as my dad is both of indigenous Uruguayan and Spanish blood.
It’s often other Latinos who tell me I can’t claim to be a part of the community because I can’t talk the talk. The concept that I’m not a true Latina because my Spanish level is basic is entirely dismissive and plays into unrealistic and toxic ideals about how the children of immigrants should behave, look, or speak. Latinos, we need to unite and support each other, not mock each other because of our differences.
Even more painful is when non-Latinos who fluently speak Spanish have had the audacity to tell me if they can do it, why can’t I? They don’t even consider the backlash I faced for speaking Spanish when I was younger because it’s something they never have – and never will – experience. They’re benefiting from something that made me feel oppressed and marginalized and shaming me for it without even realizing it.
My broken Spanish doesn’t make me any less Latina. I’ve never lost connection to my roots. Culture goes far beyond language. My last name is Méndez and my dad was born in Uruguay. No matter which way you look at it, I am Latina, regardless of my linguistics.
