Spanish is NOT an Evil Language

[rene moon]

As some of you may know, my great-grandparents came up from Mexico in 1910. They just walked across the "border", which there really want one and moved to Tucson, AZ.

They settled, had 8 kids and were very poor. My grandfather, 1st generation, married my grandmother and they had 2 kids, my mom and my uncle in the 1950s.

It was during this time that Arizona had several incredibly racist programs designed for minority children. One of these Americanization programs called, 1-C, was designed to make these minority kids (Mexican, black and Native American)"be Americans" and forgot their roots. My mom and my uncle were Americans but since they were brown, they had to go to this mandatory class

Students were punished, usually but paddling, for speaking Spanish during 1C and on the playground, and about 60 percent of these kids dropped out of school from 1919 to 1967 while 1C was in existence.

My mom didn't drop out but it had a huge effect on her. She could have graduated earlier from high school but the principal didn't let her because "she needed all the English she could get". Nevermind the fact that she was an honors student in English.

So when she married my Dad (who went through the same program), they made the decision not to teach their children Spanish, so we would not have to go through what they did. There has been studies done by the University of Arizona about those who went through the 1-C program, at least half didn't teach her kids Spanish.

But we went through and still go through the opposite. We have been teased, shunned by others of our family and accused of not being "Mexican" enough for not speaking Spanish. It's so bad for my sister, who is much more mestizo-looking than I am, that she tells people she is Indian. My other sister had told people she is Italian.

I have always claimed my heritage. I am ashamed to say that I was embarrassed by it as a kid though. And embarrassed that I didn't speak the language. I took classes in school but even now, my Spanish is bad. I understand about 70% of it but I don't speak it at all. Just a few phases here and there.

But I find that most immigrants want to learn English, but they don't have the time to take classes because they are working to support their families. Plus, i have been told English is hard to learn at a later age.

My state legislature is fighting with the Governor about funding English Language Learning for ESL kids. They want these kids of "illegals" to learn English but they don't want to fund it! Arizona is an incredibly racist state, especially given how close we are to Mexico.

I am glad that America doesn't have an "official" language. I like the mix of different languages. My parents now say they should have just gotten over their fears and taught us Spanish but what is done is done.

All I know is when I have children, they will learn Spanish be proud of being American and embracing their Mexican heritage.