and maybe I never will.
Writing for our second episode of our podcast Wicked Huercas, I got to thinking about the impact of language. As I wrote about my past country twang, I looked through Instagram accounts of empowered Latinas with words like “Jefa moves”, “Chingona life”, “Echale Ganas, sis” and many other Spanglish phrases. Platforms like Mitú and PeroLike have definitely helped to further push the use of both Spanish and English in phrases on social media and take out the embarrassment of accidentally mixing languages; I’m a native Spanish speaker, born in Mexico, and English is my second language, so why can’t I identify?
I think about growing up when I spoke English with my sisters but Spanish with my parents. English with my cousins but Spanish with my aunts and uncles. English with my Latinx friends at school, English with my non-Latinx friends at school, English when I write, English when I think, English when I’m mad, and English when I’m sad, but never Spanish in public...well, unless you’re interpreting or absolutely had to.
Growing up my Spanish was decent at best. I was a genius in one language and an idiot in the other, and it was even like that throughout college. It wasn’t until my first job out of college that I had to hunker down and work on my Spanish, only because most of the people I worked with only spoke Spanish. At least my basic Spanish skills worked well with clients whose Spanish was also not their first language, such as those who spoke Mayan languages.
A couple of years later, and I’m still struggling, except now I know “professional words” and can carry on a conversation with a Spanish-speaking adult who isn’t a family member (something that was stress-inducing in the past). My Spanish is better now, so why can’t I identify?
Maybe it’s because I grew up with little to no Spanish-speaking friends. Maybe because I was so used to “fitting in”, or maybe because I’m “white-washed”...or maybe, it’s because I’m listening to The Chicks (previously the Dixie Chicks) instead of the latest Bad Bunny song.
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