I was sitting in the doctor's office waiting room yesterday, trying to rid myself of health paranoia when for a couple of minutes I was sucked into a reality check that I otherwise would have gone on talking about without proof.
A mother was sitting with her three restless children. The eldest boy was about 5 and her daughters were about 3 and 1. When the mother asked her son about what he did in school, he let out a hasty "Everything!" "Everything?" she said, "Like what?" "Nothing," he responded. Isn't that cute when children that age have absolutely no interest in communicating much with their parents? Not much changes! When she finally got it out of him, he started talking about the "fun" part of school: games. When the mother got fed up, she said, "You had to have learned your shapes! Square,circle,triangle," and so on. He was repeating each as she said them aloud, which contunued with numbers. Then, what I have been scolding my own culture about for a while now was proven.
The mother said ,"Did they teach you Spanish?" I could already feel the negative rebelious tension in the air when the child did not respond. "You're gonna learn all of the animals...Oveja,vaca,pollo,gallina..." "No! No! No!" the boy yelled. "I don't want to hear it! I don't want to hear it!" She went on with the numbers again in her native tounge and still, the boy, acting as if someone was telling him Sesame Street was cancelled...or,in this generation, like someone had stolen his Wii, said, "Lalalalala I'm not listening! I don't want to learn Spanishhh!!"
The shame that comes along with Latino youths knowing Spanish and practicing it is so dated it kind of disgusts me, (think Zoot Suit Riot era, where kids were beaten for saying Hola.) This scenario above has been played out again and again,substituting the age of the child with a 20 something woman, or a "too cool for you" junior high kid with big chain and saggy pants. Many kids just don't care about he Spanish language. It's not their fault. How did their parents let it happen? Even when their parents don't speak one lick of English, they still manage to mute those double rr's and double ll's as inheritence to their children, who, at the end of it all, are left at a disadvantage in todays world of immigration swamped California,where they're hiring "bilingual." Forget that...just knowing it to be a tad bit more well rounded (God forbid,right?)
Parents need to wake up. Your senseless shame of being a mojado or having an accent when you walk up to a register (which is what I've heard many immigrant adults use) should be turned into pride. How else will your children feel pride in themselves? If you want to keep hearing "No" instead of si, then by all means, keep this going.
