Luna 1

Jessica Luna

ENG 1A CTW 1

Mr. Medina

28 September 2020

Todo Cambió: Everything Changed

I could feel my heart’s palpitations increasing as my mom’s silver van pulled up to the

red drop-off lane. The anxiety in my head throbbed in my skull, rapidly coursing down through

my hands and into my tense fingers where it stung, before quickly traveling back up again. The

heavy knot in my chest prevented me from speaking; I was too focused on trying to regulate my

breathing. From the passenger's seat, I turned my distressed face towards my mom hoping for

some consolation, only to be reprimanded for being anxious. As much as I desperately tried to

shake this feeling off by myself, I couldn’t. How was my coloredness supposed to feel welcomed

at a private Catholic school where the majority of the students are rich and white? It would not

be until three years of challenges had passed that I would feel comfortable with my complex

identity, realizing that it was something to protect and feel passionate about.

During my first year of high school, I tested into Spanish 3 Honors, an accelerated class

composed of juniors and seniors. I was one of the three freshmen that had qualified for this class

and yet, I felt inferior to everyone in the class. Just by looking at my classmates, I was reminded

of the differences between myself and them: I was a first generation student of color born from

Mexican immigrant parents. According to classist America, I was on the bottom of the rungs

among my rich white classmates. Whenever a classmate complained about their abhorration for

the Spanish language, I felt my face flush hot with embarrassment and anger. In the story “How
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To Tame a Wild Tongue,” Anzaldua describes this exact experience: “if you want to really hurt

me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity — I am my

language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself” (Anzaldua 81). In

Latino culture, the ability to speak Spanish is often a needed skill in order to interact with loved

ones and family. Many keystone dishes and cultural celebrations are in Spanish, therefore

degrading the Spanish language inherently illegitimizes the Latino culture. This critique on our

linguistics is an attack on our way of communication, which is crucial in order to understand our

culture and identity. As long as a Latino is culturally involved, they will be unable to separate

themselves from the Spanish language. Hearing my own classmates speak poorly of my language

was an insult and a criticism of me, and I internalized it. In response, I taught myself to be quiet

and complacent, to not participate even when I knew the answer.

I did not want to have my language or culture criticized. It was already difficult enough

going to school everyday and being one of the few people of color in the classroom. In my

freshman friend group, we were all first generation Latinas, and I affiliated myself with them

solely because we had the same background, which back then I found comforting. During lunch

period, we would often find ourselves saying phrases or full-on conversations in Spanish,

however, “For the slightly educated and agringado Chicanos, there existed a sense of shame at

being caught” (Anzaldua 83). I felt self-conscious and wary that I would be criticized for not

conforming to the English language and automatically be categorized into an ‘impostor-like’

label because of this. At times I felt reluctant to speak Spanish, thus relinquishing my

opportunity to exercise my gift of language and culture, recalling the moments where I would

occasionally overhear classmates expressing their distaste for Spanish. They thought it was so
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hard and pointless; they only took advanced Spanish courses for the benefit of their transcript. At

times I thought about confronting them with a witty remark and leaving them speechless, but I

knew they would just look at me bewildered because they did not understand the struggle of

having language duality. So I said nothing.

For sophomore year I qualified for AP Spanish Language, and for the first oral

presentation, I chose to talk about the history of the almendrones: vintage taxis. As I stepped up

to the podium, I felt myself shrink for a little, but once I had finished, my chest felt spacious and

relaxed as I figuratively stood upon the podium. Unexpectedly, my teacher decided to correct my

presentation in front of the entire class: “raite”, the word I had used to describe ‘to give a ride’,

did not exist. This wind of words struck me across the face, toppling me off of the podium which

I stood upon, sending me down into a pit where I questioned the legitimacy of my tongue. I felt

like I did not know my own language: “Deslenguadas. Somos los del español deficiente…

linguistic mestizaje...somos huérfanos—we speak an orphan tongue” (Anzaldua 80). In class, we

learn “proper” Spanish, that being Castellano Spanish. It is an embarrassment that Spanish

teachers never teach us Latinamerican Spanish, being that there are so many Spanish speakers in

Latin America. In the classrooms, native Spanish speakers are forced to learn ‘vosotros’

conjugations, as if their language was incorrect or improper; a stark reminder of colonization’s

effects on language. In this, the school and the educational system is letting us know that our

Mestizo and Latinamerican tongue is deficient; it needs to be fixed. High School Spanish

teachers spend so much time focusing on “proper” Castellano Spanish that they ignore and push

aside Latinamerican Spanish, thus casting aside our culture as well. You cannot tell a native

Spanish speaker “that word does not exist in the Spanish language”, as long as you solely base
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yourself off of Castellano Spanish. This immediately invalidates themselves and their culture,

along with any conversations they’ve had while using that word. That ‘‘grammatically

incorrect’’ word looked down upon is used constantly among a whole Spanish-speaking

community, and to them it has meaning.

The following year, I was excited to take AP Spanish Language because I wanted to read

and analyze texts in Spanish. However, It did not take long for me to be disappointed in the

class. My teacher (who was white), was not as capable as the rest of the girls in my class when it

came to speaking Spanish, and even had the audacity to speak English in a supposed Spanish

setting. As a fluent Spanish speaker, the class felt like a mockery. As Anzaldua describes in

“How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, the feeling can be described with this thought: “cultural traitor,

you're speaking the oppressor’s language by speaking English, you’re ruining the Spanish

language” (Anzaldua 77). By inaugurating oneself to be a Spanish teacher, one implicitly

assumes the responsibility of correctly teaching its culture solely through the use of Spanish, and

upholding that through monolinguistic solidarity. Instead of interacting with us on the same

level, she separated herself by speaking English—the tongue of the imposters among native

Spanish speakers. As previously mentioned, one cannot separate culture from language;

therefore it was ironic for my Spanish teacher to attempt to educate my fluent classmates on our

culture and language through English. Unfortunately, her linguistic ineptitude made her a

cultural traitor among us; she was disrespecting my language and culture by not making an effort

to analyze the texts or solely speak Spanish during class.

For the majority of my life, I have been confused by my Chicana identity. I wanted to

claim to be Mexican, but having been born on American soil, it felt wrong to pretend to be an
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immigrant. This internal power struggle with identity is futile as it can please neither side and it

is dangerous as well, since paying too much attention to one side can result in cultural loss.

Although I struggled with my dualistic identity in a predominantly white private high school,

facing these challenges awoke my dormant protectiveness for my language. I eventually learned

to have pride in speaking Spanish because it was part of me, it was part of my identity. As I let

go of negative stereotypes I was placing upon myself, I began to accept my linguistic and

cultural duality.
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Works Cited

Anzaldúa, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” ​Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza,
by Gloria Anzaldúa, Aunt Lute Books, 2007, pp. 75–86.