Do you change the way you speak, depending on who you’re talking to? Do you Code Switch?

             No, but I’ve had plenty of confrontation over the subject of code switching in my life anyways. I’ve noticed my dad does, for example when he’s at work, or when he’s with his friends. But even then, he talks differently with people he has recently become friends with, then when he’s with people he grew up with. It’s like a different side of him when he’s with people he’s always known them. It’s always natural, but it seems more fluid or…just normal, when he talks with them. Like with people he grew up with it’ll be more of a “yo, whats good” while with friends he recently acquired, it’s more of a “Hey man, what’s up?”

            Me , myself, I don’t do it as often or as severely as he does.  I’ve had people ask me why I talk “white”, or why I talk that way. When peopleusually ask me this, it’s generally not in a kind or happy tone, and it usually leads up to, the ever so wonderful. “So you think your better than me or what?” My favorite question…ever. I’ve lost friends over the subject of my speech. It’s like people think I’m just being rude, like I’m talking this way because I put myself above them or something.

           I live in Germantown, on the rougher side and I didn’t really have any friends that lived near me until I came to Sla. I’ve just never….felt like I fit in with the kids around there. I did used to have one friend around there, and I really liked her...but her friends didn’t like me. They’d question why I was with her, and why she even liked me…

 “What you mean why? I hang out wit who ever I want..”

“ Well you can’t jus leave us for…her.”

“Im not leavin yall, I’m just talkin to her calm down..”

“Why?? She think she better than all of us anyway”

           At this point I wanted to speak up….but I’ve never been very confident, or one to speak up when I’m nervous or shy….but I wanted to tell them I wasn’t being ignorant. That I wasn’t trying to disrespect them by talking the way I do…That it was just the way I talk, and that isn’t something I could change, even if I wanted to. She didn’t stop hanging out with me though, not until she moved one day. She was having a sleep over at her new house, and I really wanted to go, I begged my mom and dad. They’d met her, she’d gone places with us, but they said no…because they had never actually met her parents…After that we stopped talking…and I lost the one friend I had, who had lived near me.

          I went to summer camp at a church, behind my house, one year. The kids there were loud...and all seemed to know each other, and when I don’t 

know  anyone I stay to myself. We had an introduction circle, and the only person who spoke in the same “accent” as me was the camp counselor, and she was white. I felt awkward and out of place, not just because I was shy, also because these weren’t the people I generally found myself with. Some people didn’t talk to me because of the way I talked. So I never really had that many friends there, even the ones I did have, wouldn’t talk to me now if they saw me on the street. Some forgot my name, others just don’t care that much.

          I went to a private school most of my life, and as you progressed into higher grades, you could find less and less diversity in the student population. In about 7^th grade I was officially the only person who wasn’t white. There was a Mexican boy named Raul, who lived in Germantown too, and he always told me how I didn’t belong there…because I’m not black. He wasn’t the first to say that, and he surely wasn’t the last. When he said it, Ireally felt offended that he would take me away from my race like that. Simply because of the way I speak. I guess I got used to being told I’m not black though. I have friends who tell me it now, and I most likely will in the future, that’s not really something I can help though. They don’t mean it in a mean way. They just say it, like they’ll call me an “Oreo”, “White girl”, “ you’re a white girl, you just have black skin.”. These aren’t usually said to be mean, it’s just the way they see me I guess.

Zakee Jones

Gold stream

English essay

“Hahaha look a bol he a whole joke”

He talkn like he some time of professional person cuz ”.

“ Yo Zakee do you hear bol isn’t he a joke?

“Ehh  sure whatever” I said walking away.

Trying to walk away from the huge crowed I didn’t realize that this many people had come to make fun of this 1 kid. But I guess I couldn’t blame them. Everything he said he said  was formal and well spoken like he was some rich kid who was too good to speak like we did. I guess you could say that him speaking like that just mad kids angry because he was way out of their language.  People tend  to get angry because people talks differently, they break off onto their on way of talk and to fixed  how they see society. Often times they despise each other saying the way they talk is right and completely  ignore  that their will always be more then one way to talk to a person.

I didn’t really care how he talked as long as he didn’t start anything with me. In class he sat alone not one person even said anything to him. Until the teacher called on him to answer a question. At first he didn’t say a word. I assume he didn’t know that answer but he answered it right. Not only did he get the right answer  but he corrected they way she talked. All the kids snapped and stared yelling at him and started saying stuff like nigga this and nigga that and a lot more. Even after that he told her the right way to use it.

That night when I walked home it made me think about how I say stuff. I use so much slang I don’t know how I never noticed it. It just became my language. It annoyed me knowing I talked like this and I wanted to change it. Finding help was going to be the hard part. just about everyone  I knew used slang just as much as I did. I would have asked my mom for some advice but she works so much that I don’t see her. The only person I could have think of was the smart-ass guy who schooled a teacher. My phone rang and it was my friend ask me for home work. Within those few second I replied with so much slang that when I look at what I wrote I didn’t have even 1 word spelled right. I needed help quick. I didn’t want to become some street bum who didn’t have a job because of the way I speak and spell. 

I tried going to the new kid but he just ignored  me.

”Hello can you help my cuzz?

He said nothing but kept eating.

“Well if ya didn’t wanna talk den that’s all ya have to say.”

 He replied with “well if your English wasn’t  so terrible I could have heard you.”

Piss off  asshole,” I said walking away mad.

At this point I didn’t  even care about would happen. If I talk like dis all mah life oh well.the way I speak may sound wrong, but am kinda happy so I can live with it. The Phone rings and it my friends calling me about a party down the block from him and asked if I wanted to come at first I was going to say nah but then I changed my mind and said sure. Party time came and I was ready. I headed out the door and before I knew it I was there. People talked everywhere so loud I couldn’t think to myself. Look for my friend but the crowd was to much. I hear people yelling and screaming, I had to get away.

“yo zakee over here 

“Dude their you are wtf with all dez people?”

“ Most is my family I didn’t know they was going to come”

“Theirs this chick I want you to meet.

He walks me over to meet her “yo this they dude been talking bout”

At first sight she looked  ghetto. Her first few words were ghetto, every time she talked she ended every thing with n”s like talkn, sleepn chilln its was her accent with the words that drove me mad. But then again  I talk the same way. Does this mean I”m ghetto? Mostly likely  but at least I was trying to change that. A lot of other people I know just don’t care. I go home  my mom says,

“how was the party?”

 “ehh it was ok”

days past is and I don’t Care about anything, language what ever. Going back to my old English ways of sayn yo bol, ayoo,. Few years  past and we moved to another  place just out side of Philly. It was near the suburban area. Mostly whites not rally black. Before I even knew it I heard these two whites guys talking. While they were talking I noticed they didn’t use any slang at all. Pure English. It made me think. Where you grow up is how you learn they way you speaking. Basically if people live where people say Potahto potato there going to say it like that because they were raised in that area. Knowing this made it easier to grow out of this habbit  but what if this habbit was my own insecure about how I speak. James Baldwin  said “if black English isn’t a language, then tell me what is?” I think  then what it means is what is language other then understanding each other. That’s what I always  seen language as for that one purpose. It can stand for different things like power, and love ect, but with out communication would kill it whole  purpose of the word. That’s why when people talk slang as  long as they can understand each other then in my book that’s language. So I shouldn’t  change the way I speak but learn multiply was to speak withoutchanging the true way I speak.

after all of this im able to say that my speaking skills is now on a better level then It was on before. Saying all of this you could say that languges is  comucataing with each other to a under standing of who is saying what and then reacting to it using  your own style of lanuge.

            In my house, the five of us (six, with my dog,) speak many, many languages. Our languages aren’t the conventional “language” categories. We speak English and some Spanish, but those aren’t our favorites. Each situation we find ourselves in dictates which unconventional language we must use, and I personally remember many times when one of us has combined multiple languages so that they fit the circumstances. Growing up with these languages around me and using them for myself, possibly even creating a few variations, I have become attached to them. Just as the languages have become a part of my speech, they have also become a part of me and my family. These parts within us manifest themselves at certain times, quite often.

            One night my family was sitting around the table eating dinner, and I was about five minutes into explaining why time travel wouldn’t ever be possible. My mom was clearly out of it, my oldest brother had a look of bemusement on his face, my dad was nodding with a “I’m going to disagree in a moment” expression, the dog was waiting for dropped food, and my other brother, who had long ago stopped paying attention, reached for his phone because he thought nobody was looking. Sure enough, my father did in fact have an objection to my theory. In the next minute he interrupted, saying in Lawyer, “That argument is specious.” Confused, I responded in English With an Accent: “Don’t rightly know what ‘specious’ means, mate, but cheers for the disagreement, ey?” At that point, the dog chimed in, speaking Dog, of course, and brought to the table the counterargument of “Bark, bark… grrr… woof, roof, ruff!!!” My oldest brother, Andrew, said “on that note, I’m gonna go get some water.” On his way to get there, he stumbled and caught himself on the counter, clearly dizzy. This consistently happens to my father, my brothers, and me whenever we stand up too fast. Disoriented, he asked, “why does this happen so much?” My mom responded to this in Doctor, saying, “well you don’t drink anything all day, you’re probably hypovolemic,” resulting in blank stares from the rest of us. Times like that, where a few of us have no idea what the others have said, are more common than you’d think. But, with each time, we learn each other’s languages and add the knowledge to our vocabulary. I now know that specious means reasonable on the outside, but due to either faulty logic or already proven facts, it is false, and that hypovolemic means that you have a low blood volume.

A month or two later, my brothers walked up from the basement and I heard (and mostly understood) the end of a conversation, speaking Sports, regarding their latest FIFA game.

“…then he did a rainbow and bicycle kicked it right past the keeper, it was great!”

“Yeah, can’t wait to try that one myself, it looked awesome. Meanwhile, I’ll stick to juggling while they’re trying their hardest to win. A demoralizing tactic if ever I’ve used one.”

Not a week later, they were using Sports again, this time debating the merits of potential players the Phillies might target in “free-agency.” “Batting average is nice and all but it’s becoming an outdated statistic, OPS is much more indicative of a player’s offensive value.” I decided to break in and confuse them by talking about the computer that I built. I decided that Nerd was the best language for this task. “Hey guys, wanna play a game on the new computer? It’s got 8 Giga-bytes of RAM, a quad-core i5 2500 at 3.3 Giga-hertz and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 with 4 Giga-bytes of video RAM.” They both stood there, looking quizzical, waiting for an explanation.

“…Fine, it’s really fast and good at doing things.”

“OH, that sounds cool, yeah, lets have a look!”

In the essay “Borderlands” by Giona Anzaldia, there is a section in which she talks about how certain things have became tied to her identity. For her, these things are food, the smell of something from her childhood that brings her back in time. I share that similarity with her, although my tied identity-pieces aren’t food or smells. The things that bring me home and have built up who I have become and will become are the languages that we use in the house. My family’s inconsistent code-switching and cornucopia of languages will keep spontaneity and creativity a part of who I am. I’m ready to take on newer languages and learn their ins and outs, and I’m eager to further my knowledge on the vocabulary of each new language. Outside of our house we keep a mostly constant language. I, myself, tend to speak Nerd to my friends, as we do all go to SLA. My mom speaks Doctor to her Med-school friends and co-workers. My dad speaks Lawyer in his law office, and my brothers speak some sports with their friends. But in our family, ask any one of the five of us what species Crookshanks is, and we’ll tell you half Kneazle, half cat. Which person in all of Hogwarts has both a first and last name that are colors? Lavender Brown. What is the name of Padma Patil’s twin sister? Parvati. As any witch, wizard or muggle in our house can tell you, the Lingua Franca is Potter.

“Yo I wanna go somewhere like!!”

“Where you wanna go?” I said

“Idk where can we go?”

“Uh….Ight lets see. You can go bowlin’, skatin’, play double dutch, go shoppin’, watch a movie, take a breeze, or go find outha people to hang wit.” I said thinking.

“Man, you know I can’t bowl r skate. And you know well enough I don’t jump no rope dats too girly foe me. I don’t want to go shoppin’ or watch a movie. I don’t want to take a walk. So let’s go find Keem and B Ran and see if dey can come out.”

“Ard.” I said

I grew up in North Philly, where you heard cops sirens everyday and people arguing. Where you never heard anyone talk proper and if you did you would get jump. The area where all the boys was on the corner trying to make money for a living. Since living here I could never talk “proper”, everything that came out my mouth was slang. All day and night that’s what you heard. I did it so much that I couldn’t even get out of it. My parents even told me I needed to learn to speak right because they couldn’t figure out what I was saying. They told me that I would need to fix the way I speak before I went to high school interviews.

“Why do you feel as though you’ll be a good influence into coming into Franklin Learning Center?”

“I would be a good influence into coming into Franklin Learning Center because I am supportive, helpful, and I’m excellent when it comes to doing my work and paying attention.” I said proudly.

“And what would you bring to this school?”

“I would bring my intelligence, my artistic skills, and my manners everyday no matter what. And I would never bring my problems to the school property.” I responded.

“Okay, very nice it was good speaking to you.”

“You too.” I said

It took me a while to learn how to speak proper but I finally did. I would only speak that way if I was interviewing somewhere or being nice or even talking to my the adults in my family. This became a problem to me one day because I was so used to speaking proper that I started using it around my friends. When they heard me talk they kept asking me why was I talking the way I was. I didn’t know what they were talking about at first because I didn’t realize how I was talking to them. After finally noticing, I told them what was up and about what my parents said. They told me that I had changed, that I was talking white and that it was creeping them out. They also told me that I was trying to be better than them now that I’m going to high school. I didn’t know what to do because how would I remember to keep switching up the way I talk when I’m around them. And after thinking about it I was kind of mad that they said I talked white and that I had changed, just because I talked different from them now in a more proper tone, I’m considered different. I’m the same person that they knew before but just talk a little bit better. So now every time I see them they would say “Do you still talk like a white girl?”  I don’t respond to them when they say stuff like that so they would think that I still do.

After thinking about it some more I came to realize something. Were they right? Did I change? Was I not that North Philly girl who talked nothing but slang? Was talking proper make me better than them? I started to frown upon the thoughts. I went to my mom to see what she thought.

“Mom do I talk white?”

“What do you mean do you talk white?”

“Like do I sound white…proper white?”

“No you just sound proper. There’s no such thing of proper white. Why you ask?”

“Because my friends said I sound white when I talk.  And that I’m trying to be better than them since I changed the way I talk. So now I’m trying to switch up the way I talk every time I’m ‘round dem cuz dey gonna keep makin fun of me. And I don’t know what to do. I’m just tryin to be me and I can’t help it if I talk dis way now. I’m not tryin to be betta den ‘em I’m not. Man, IDK!!” I said sadly.

“Well it look like it to me that you got your language back again. But don’t worry about what they say. They are just jealous that you are going somewhere and they not. And heck you just may be better than them if you keep up the work that you’re doing. They’re mad because they have to work on the corners to get money since they can’t keep a job when you’re going to be the owner of a job. So forget what they say just be you and do what you think is comfortable for you.”

            Ever since then I kept the words in my mind of what my mom had said. My friends got mad after telling them what my mom said and that I agreed with it but I didn’t care they wasn’t true friends anyway. I don’t worry about what people think or say about the way I talk or sound. If they don’t like, tough luck because I do. Yeah I may switch up the way I talk sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident, but it doesn’t bother me. Language can either bring you to the top of the world or it can tear you down depending on what and whom you are dealing with. Like me, the way I speak at interviews are going to take me places since I sound professional but that same voice was going to ruin my relationships with certain people.

In the essay called “I Just Wanna Be Average” by Mike Rose it says, “I just want to be average.’ That woke me up. Average? Who wants to be average?” This quote from the story spoke to me a lot because people don’t think about what they really want when they say certain stuff. They always think that being on top is always good and the best but it’s not. You don’t always have to be greedy and be on top, you can just be in the middle and have a piece of everything. I knew so many people like this and I used to be one of them. All I ever wanted to be was on top, I didn’t want to be average; I wanted to be better and more popular than everyone. But now I just want to be and do me. Being average is the best way to go for me. You’re not in the higher class where everyone knows who you are and every step you make, but you’re also not in the lower last class where you would die for attention and to be popular. To me being average is the key to my life; I can fit into any group whether it’s with people who talk slang or with people who talk professional. And being average brought me so far and I don’t plan into letting it go.

            I have been speaking Spanish my whole life; it is, in fact, my first language. Many people are actually surprised when they hear the Spanish come out of my mouth. I don’t blame them; I don’t look Latino, I at all actually look white. But I am indeed Latino, I have an Ecuadorian passport and My race is registered Latino in the US, so as far as the US, Ecuador, and my heritage are concerned I’m Latino. A big shocker, I know, believe me, I’ve seen the expressions of some people’s faces before. The first words to come out of my mouth were “teta,” or “baby bottle,” as it’s known in Ecuador. But in most other Spanish-speaking nations teta is “breast,” so don’t go around saying you know how to say bottle because you’ll find yourself in some awkward situations.

            Now, being a first-born Latino American who looks white and has the ability to speak Spanish has its advantages and disadvantages. With my ability to speak Spanish I can talk about people right in front of their faces without them actually knowing, without actually saying their name of course. An example of this is when I had my friend Anthony over and my mom was making fun of him. We were all in the living room and Anthony and I were headed out somewhere and I was putting on my shoes in front of the door. Anthony was sitting on the couch and my parents were standing up and my five-year-old sister seemed to be very flirtatious towards Anthony.

Mom: “Mirale a ese ignorante, no sabe nada de español, no sabe nada de lo que estamos diciendo” (Look at him being all ignorant, not knowing any Spanish or anything we’re saying about him)

Jhonas: Hahaha!!! Si ignora el ignorate! (Hahaha!!! Yes ignore the ignorant)

Mama: “Mira le coqueteando con mi hija de cinco años el no tiene nada de morales” (Look at him flirting with my five year old daughter, he has no morals)

Anthony: “I know you guys are talking about me.”

Jhonas: “Hahaha!!! No tiene, pero ya tenemos que hirnos” (Hahaha!!! No he doesn’t, but we have to go now)

(My mom whispers in my dad’s ear)

Mama: “Voy a decirle que lleva estas chocolates a su novia solo para molestarle” (I’m going to tell him to take these chocolates to his girlfriend just to piss him off)

Mama: “Jhonas estas olvidando tus chocolates para tu..” (Jhonas you’re forgetting your chocolates for your…)

Jhonas: “Te escuche decirle a papi que solo estas tratando de molestarme” (I heard yo whisper to dad that you’re just trying to piss me off)

Mama: “Hahaha!!! Adios hijo Buena suerte y dile lo mismo al ignorante” (Hahaha!!! Bye son, good luck and tell the ignorant person I said the same)

Jhonas “Okay, adios” (Okay, bye)

Anthony: “I still know you guys are talking about me, you keep looking in my general direction”

I will admit that talking about someone in there face in a different language has its flaws. But for the most part it works; Anthony seemed to have no idea what we were talking about and it was in front of his face, it was a funny moment. For the record my mom did not mean any of that, she was just being funny.

            Like I said before, being a white Latino American who knows Spanish has its disadvantages, but one disadvantage is also an advantage. When I go to neighborhoods that are Latino dominant I see people give me looks because of the fact that I look white. I feel like a mixed African American from the 50’s because at that time neither the African Americans or the whites would accept that person because they were mixed. I feel discriminated in a way; it just hurts sometimes not being accepted by your own people. But there is an advantage to this disadvantage; they speak about me in Spanish in front of my face. They have no idea about the fact that I speak Spanish. So all I do is go up to them and say “Yo se de lo que estan hablando, tambien soy Latino entonces no hablan mal de mi en frente de mi cara porque te entiendo todo de lo que estan diciendo” (I know what you guys are talking about, I’m also Latino so don’t speak about me in front of my face because I know what you guys are saying). The expressions on their faces are priceless, jaws dropped and everything, I smile and walk away and think to myself “I got them good” and I giggle to myself.

            This is just a glimpse at what goes on in my life in regards to being a white Latino who speaks Spanish. It’s actually very fun, I enjoy being able to talk in Spanish and I love Spanish, more than English as a matter of fact. But it is, indeed, a great feeling to just being able to talk to someone from another country in their native tongue and it just sounds very sexy coming out which is a plus. This essay is mierly an appitizer compared to my whole life as a Latino, which is the whole platter. 

“Well is not lik I chos tah get in tah trhuble ovar this!” I say talking quickly as I got more, and more aggravated with the situation. I had just gotten into an argument with my parents over a few things that were missed in school. It was bugging me a lot they were making too big a deal out of it. They never seemed to understand much when it came to their youngest daughter.

 “Ok ok. I understand.” My friend tells me as my out bursts become more, and more hard to understand as my Irish accent comes out of hiding.

“It juhst not fairh! I dow mah best tah make them happy an….grrr!” I was too upset with my parents at the time to realize I was talking too fast to be completely understood. When I calmed down enough to speak normal it was more of a south philly slang then an Irish accent. It had been unintentional, and hard to understand. I could tell by the look on her face that she had no clue what I had been saying. It didn’t take me long to realize what I must of sounded like, and it wasn’t exactly a good thing. “Sorry, I just can believe they’re actin like this.”

“Yeah I know what you mean.”

 No, my argument with my parents didn’t exactly matter in this scene we don’t see eye to eye enough for it to matter. No, what I want you to see is that accent placed so oddly in my voice. That slight higher pitch, that quickened pace, the rolling r’s, all signs I had gotten too upset to keep my crazy Irish accent out of my speech. Was I born in Ireland? Answer no. I’m third generation in this country on my father’s side. Was I introduced to it a lot as a kid? Same as before no. My father only spoke it to show how his Grandmum spoke when she was alive. I taught my self by practicing every time I thought of it when I was younger.

 I hadn’t realized that with an already fast South Philly accent I could easily get myself into unconsciously to start speak with an Irish accent when upset.  I never intended to do such a thing as this. I admit at one point I did use the Irish accent on purpose to impress others, but after a few years of doing so it became a force of habit. I regret doing so though more then likely I speak with the South Philly accent I was born into. I hate to do things unintended, because it got me picked on sometimes. When in elementary I got picked on a lot, but I was laughed at because when I would get upset the South Philly in me showed in how I spoke.

 “Mon’ that ant cool! Could ya do me this one favore, an leav me the hell alone?” I would yell at the girls sitting there making fun of anything they could pick at to kill my already dying self-esteem.

 “Stop tryin ta be gensta, when ya know ya ant!” they would counter.

 “I ant tryin nothin you’re the one’s startin something wit me! Comon can’t ya just leav me alone already!” it was one thing to have my looks and personality looked at, and completely demolished by those who were my fellow school mates, but my speech was something I couldn’t hide for too long. When I would get angry not only would I speak like a south Philly girl, but I would yell, and make my voice shrill with rage. That always got a laugh every time. I began to hate talking at all not only was my emotion in it made fun of, but I got shut down by my classmates for even talking.

 It’s like James Baldwin says “Language is also a political instrument means, and proof of power”. What he said made sense to me who never seemed able to find power in my speech even when emotional. If language is power then it seems obvious that even when angry I had none. My voice was too shrill, the Philly slang coming out of a person so small, and proper under most circumstances was bound to be unthreatening. The fact that everyone laughed when I put my powerful emotions in to my voice shows that they had stripped me of that power. It also shows that I don’t have a complete understanding on how to use my voice, even when emotional, as a tool to be heard. It goes with out saying now that I have no real power in the voice I have.

 After being laughed at for so many years I learned better then to open my mouth. I became soft spoken, I would try not to answer questions I knew the answer to and would keep as quiet as possible when not with friends. As I got older I started to use my voice as a whip. I would spit out cruel words, and retorts when angry also without the yelling. I had gotten good at hurtful phrases with a tone of voice that could cut, and burn the ears of the people who had once used them to hurt me. After all my years of being the one stung, and cut I was now turning their hurtful weapons against them. The scars, and my rage coming together to turn the tables on the battleground that was my self-esteem, and theirs’.  I held on to those taunts, and words waiting for just the right moment to turn them against the people who needed some revenge induced karma as I call it.

 Maxine Hong Kingston said something that works very well with what I was doing in my head. She says in her story “Tongue-Tied” that, “The hearer can carry it tucked away without it taking up much room.” The ‘it’ being something a person says, like telling a person a story. What I did was similar, I took every horrible and painful thing they said to me, and tucked it away. I held on to them for years, and years they never got in the way. I waited until I finally had just about enough of their taking advantage of my quiet, and pacifist personality to unleash on them what they had said, and called me all those years ago. “Bitch” was the first word in my arsenal, and it came out as a shocker to every person in the class who heard me say it. “Did that just happen?” they seemed to be collectively thinking. Did the small person who was almost always invisible till someone wanted someone to hurt another just snap back with a cuss word? They were shocked. I on the other hand wasn’t, I had been holding on to that, and many other words for years just waiting for the right time to put anger, and memory to work.

In reality it had taken me much too long to learn how to put power in my voice the right way. It wasn’t so much how I spoke or how loud I was when emotional. If you didn’t learn the right words, and tone to use when trying to get the results you wanted you got laughed at, and hurt. I to this day can’t decide if that’s the right idea or not. Looking back at how much time I spent studying the right way to be heard by others I couldn’t tell you if I was wrong, or right. It had taken 6 years to even get a clue on what words to use, or how my voice should sound. In the end I think I learned how to use words as a weapon rather then a means of getting my point across, so I still get ignored at times, and it does still bother me, but I at lest try to be heard now, and again.

I walked into the room giving a quick look and releasing my breathe in sign of relief. I took my seat and quickly started a conversation with one of the students.

“We had homework last night?”

“No, but we do have a quiz on chapter 9”

“Oh my god, really? I still don’t have all the words memorized!”

“Tough luck, here she comes now”

“Buenos días señores y señoras, ¿como están?”

Everyone at the same time “Bien”

“Y tu, yacca. ¿Como estas?

“Bien, me siente un poco desprimida”

“Deprimida*, bueno comencemos la clase de hoy.”

I’m starting to get use to getting corrected all the time in a language I thought I knew so well. My mom would always brag about how well I know the language and that would always make me feel confident when Spanish comes up. Well it used to always make me feel confident, up until the day I stepped foot into room 204 Spanish 202. It was a small classroom. One wall of the room was full of books while a long table took up the rest of the space in the room with chairs around it. It was a similar set-up where meeting are usually held. Aside from that it was just 12 other students and I for the next 2 hours and 30 minutes.

            The first time I went to Spanish class I felt very confident, it was going to be an easy A. I was thinking that I had already learned to read, write, and speak the language and that there was nothing else to learn. I was wrong. The more classes I had the more I realized how little I knew the language and how much I needed the class. At home I would have normal conversations with my parents in Spanish. We would talk about my day, and everything in general and very little times did my parents ever correct me when I said something wrong.

After having passed midterms in Spanish I started to over think the way I talk. I started to realize how I was struggling in class trying to process everything the teacher was saying to me. I started to lose confidence in myself, began to believe I didn’t know Spanish the way I thought I did. It got to the point where I started to forget the name of things in Spanish, I would even have trouble finishing a sentence. I began to get quieter during class, scared that if I participated I would get it wrong. It’s never wrong to fail; failing just gives you another chance to make it better. In my case I was scared that being the only Hispanic in the class everyone expected me to know it all and if I were to be incorrect the other students would think less of me. Although, there were those moments where she called on me and I ran out of luck.

“Yacca, ¿puedes repasar numero dos?”

“Si claro, uhm. ¿Presente perfecto de subjuntivo?”

“No, es el pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo. Lo usamos para expresar una de las categorías enlistadas por encima con referencia al momento anterior u otra acción pasada”

I would stare at the professor as if she were speaking to me in another language. I knew the words she was using but they didn’t seem to come together in my head when she would explain it to me. The more frequent encounters of being corrected left me believing I didn’t know the language. Therefore this left me to the point where I had multiple errors while talking, which usually wouldn’t occur with me.

            The more often I thought about it more often I realized that it wasn’t my fault as to why I spoke Spanish the way I spoke it. With unpronounced letters here, and different words over there, for different items it all was unclear. The way the teacher was teaching the rest of the students to speak Spanish was completely different as to how I spoke it. The way my family speaks it in the environment I grew up in. Since I only was ever around people who spoke Spanish the way I did I was prone to believe that was the only way to speak Spanish. Since the professor would always correct the way I spoke and wrote Spanish that made me feel as if I were talking wrong all these years. When really it was just different ways of speaking the language. You have the slang Dominican Spanish I speak and the proper Spanish I was learning.

            Until I made this realization I was losing pride in my language. Started to think less of the way my aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, and parents spoke. I then had more pride in whom I really was, and I’m glad I talk the way I do and am the way I am. As the Spanish author Gloria Anzaldua said in Oye Como Ladra: el lenguaje de la frontera “So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language”. From now on I’ll take more pride in my language, Instead of thinking less of myself and losing confidence I will  defend my own. 

Henry Poeng

Gold Stream

“The Asian That Could”

“Ey yo, ching diggity!”

“.....”

“Do... you... under...stand?”

“....”

“Whateva get outta here Jackie Chan, your not worth my time.”

I was crushed. Do I look like a slow child or something? Why did he speak to me like that. Like I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. I just walked away defeated and powerless. When I got far enough, I turned around to see my harasser. He was a tall kid, rag bag clothes, and had a School District of Philadelphia ID around his neck. The back drop of the surrounding area just made it worse. Destroyed houses, wild grass, and broken side walks all matched the mood. The worse part is, it made me think of ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages). 

“Welcome to ESOL everyone, now i’m sure you barely understand me, but hopefully by the end of your time here, you should be able to have conversations with one another in English. Lets start by introducing our names. You seem quiet, how about you go first.”

“Ja, ja ,amesss”

“Hen... bry. Henbry”

It was just first grade, I was barely into school, and already I knew this wasn’t going to be a good year. New school, new people, and english was still slipping my mind. The only class I was doing good in was math. Why? because, math is a universal language that everyone can speak, and since I couldn’t understand english, why not math? That probably explains why most asians are good at math. Although it was still a struggle throughout most of  elementary school. I had the most difficultly in first through third grade. Why? Well because the quest to learn and dominate the english language is long, difficult and almost impossible as I learned over the years. 

“Henry would you like to read todays announcements?” 

“No”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes”

“Just know that this is part of your participation grade.”

So I started, slow, shaky, and scared.

“Come and.. jo... oin us at your fist frmerly di..nner.”

Laughter and humiliation bellowed from the heart of the room, crushing my morale. From that day forth, I vowed to never participate willingly again, regardless of the situation. But that didn’t last very long because the urge to voice my opinion overcame my vow, and eventually overcame my fear as well. It was frustrating to not understand what someone is saying, and to not be able to voice what I want to say because no one would understand me. Little did I know, it was a good push for me to learn. 

“Welcome back to school everyone!, who wants to tell me about their winter break first? How about you Henry?”

“Well it was pretty fun, but I am not sure of what I did on those days of break.”

Fourth grade is when it all started coming together. Confidence, accent, it was like a new me was born. The confidence just kept building and building, and it felt great. By 5th grade, my accent was gone and I spoke mostly proper english by my consideration. My spirit was through the roof, and I was proud to say that I had learned a third language. To this very day, I am still learning tips and tricks to further “enhance” the english experience.

“Yo ching chong wiggity wong!, going back to your sweat shop?”

“If by house, then yes.”

“Oh you can speak now, congradumacalations. Someone took long enough to learn engeresh, homeboi skilly bizdaddy.”

“Please, say it with me, Eng... Lish. For someone that likes to pick on other people, you sure don’t know anything.” 

“I gotchu, asian boi got some skills, and is all confident now huh?”

“I had enough of this.”

  The look on his face was priceless after I walked away with the biggest smile. When I got far enough, I looked back towards his direction. Same old rag bag clothes, and same old backdrop after all these years. It makes me wonder sometimes. 

Ever since that day, I assumed people who spoke like that were bad, not necessarily because they are bad people, but because of bad experiences. Kind of like getting hit by a basketball in the head a couple times and then developing a phobia to it. In “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” by James Baldwin, there is a quote that I strongly stand by. “To open your mouth in England is (if I may use black English) to “Put your business in the street””. This can be interpreted as “Letting people know who you are”. This quote explains how people subconsciously judge each other by how they speak. That’s what I do, and i’m pretty sure that’s what everyone else does too. It’s almost like reading a biography on that person, and each biography teaches a lesson.

Language is something that is  apart of who you are as person. As a young foolish teen once made up, “A well educated person will speak proper, but there ain’t nothin’ wrong wit showin da real you.” You can go to a job interview and dress to impress but you speech is weak, chances are you won’t get accepted. As for what I learned so far, language shows a couple of things about a person. Education, background, and history. If I were to say water in New York, they would be able to tell that I was from Philly just because of the way I pronounced it. If you are dedicated enough, you can bend your language and make convey what you want to. 

Victoria Odom

Language Essay

Translation Please!!

“You ain’t gon do shhhit!”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re not going to do anything.”

“Bitch I air you out.”

 “And what does that mean?”

“She’s going to curse her out.”

I took a walk around the neighborhood with my best friend and saw two girls arguing. We stopped and gathered the crowd around them to see what the argument was about. In my mind I already knew I’d have to be the one translating for Chrissy. The two girls were both black and looked older than us, about sixteen or seventeen. With us being thirteen, and Chrissy not getting out much, she had never heard that kind of language before.

“If that’s what they mean, than why don’t they just say that?”

“You ask to many questions, shut up and listen!”

The sound of an angry parent lurked the air and immediately everyone splits. After about 5 minutes of running, Chrissy and I decide to both go home. Walking into the house I started to think about what Chrissy said. If the girls really meant what I explained to Chrissy than why didn’t they just say that.

Most who look down on blacks refer to the way they speak as “slang” or “nigga talk” but for me it comes natural because it’s the way of English I speak most often. My language does change a lot depending on my environment. With friends and family my age, I use “slang” because we adapted to that language as we grew up. When with them, I replace the “th” in they, that, them, their, there, and they’re, with a “d” creating “dey, dat, dem, deir, dere, and dey’re”. When in a professional environment I annunciate my words more, creating the more standard way of speaking English. “Yes, I agree with you completely.” rather than saying, “Yeah, you right you right!” Speaking more formal gives me power because it gives others a chance to hear my voice for more respect.

That wasn’t always the case for me, I use talk “white” growing up in private school but, some of them use to say I talked funny.

“Can you pass me a napkin please and thank you.”

“Why you talk like that?”

“Like what?”

“So white, what you half white or something?”

“No my mom taught me to always speak as if I’m educated.”

            Being much younger then, about the age of nine, I didn’t fully understand why other kids my age didn’t pronounce of their words.

It all depends on their environment because that’s what shapes you. You can’t choose your first language, its kind of chosen for you at birth. Whatever native tongue your parents or guardians speak is the language you learn first. After you learn to fully speak a language you make it your own in a way, by choosing the way you want to speak it. Speaking with confidence in mind, shows power and giving off that demand for respect.

If Black English isn’t a language; Then tell me what is? By James Baldwin, he says “The argument has nothing to do with language itself but with the role language.”. This quote shows that a language is a language but differs by the way it’s spoken or who it’s spoken by. Saying “Who you talking to?” in “slang” shows people in today’s society that you have little to no respect or are uneducated because you leave out the “are”. By saying “Who are you talking too?”, it shows you  have higher class and a decent amount of education.

            Language shows your character and creates an identity for us individually. It also varies in our environment depending on the people around us, forming our personality. Language makes us who we are today and shapes us as we use it.