"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." That saying was all a very big lie that we all use but never works. The truth is that words hurt a lot more then sticks and stones because at least when time passes the bruises that were on you will not be there anymore, but when it comes to those words, they will always linger in you mind not out of sight. I know this very well because there are words that hurt a lot and keep on repeating themselves each time I think of my middle school. The schools name is William Levering Elementary School, It’s a very old school there was two different building, a new building that was made out of concrete and had bigger windowed. The floors were well made and they aren’t cracked. The old building was made out stone the windows are regular size. The floor was made out of concrete and it was all cracked, the walls all have words written on them like “Whore, Bitch, etc.” then there were the drawings of the males organ and of the females chest. I was in eighth grade when I had painful words spoken to me. This was a time that a teacher called me stupid using big words thinking that I wouldn’t understand her. I didn’t get it at first. I would ask myself was it because English was not my first language, my first tongue or was it that my first language, my first tongue was so disliked by others? or was it that Spanish is my first language and it’s a hard language for a lot of people to learn or was it because I knew two languages and she only knew one was that why she talk to me in that ill manner way? Until now I didn’t get why she said those hateful words.

The words that were spoken were,  “Maria you won’t be able to do anything. You’re inept and can’t do anything. You can’t read or write. Your test grades are lower then the average. You don’t even use what we had taught you.” Those words hurt a lot the first time I heard then but not only once but twice. The first time it was said to me was around February 1:50pm. I was walking down to the nurse room with one of my best friend. The whole day was so nice. Nothing bad happened but when I got into the nurse room she was there. She was like 4.9ft in height and she looks very constipated. She was talking to the nurse when I had walking in she had said to the nurse, “I only ate half of a peanut and that was my lunch.” After I had finished at the nurse my friend and I want to the library. My homeroom teacher let us go to the library but the lady didn’t know. She came up to my friend and I. That was when those hateful words were spewed out. I was about to cry but I couldn’t show her that it hurt so much. I wasn’t about to go and give her the pleasure and the power to make me cry. So I want to the classroom and hid from everyone and started to cry. Now every time that I think of my elementary her words repeat themselves.

Some words hurt more then others, were this words “You can’t read or write.” These words were right but at the sametime wrong because I can read and I can write. I may have some trouble with grammar and with words but that doesn’t mean that I can do either. Even my English teacher said I had good Ideas but it’s just the grammar and the explanation that I need to fix.

The other set of words that hurt were, “You’re inept and can’t do anything.”  They were the words that I didn’t understand that much, but I figured it out. It was another way to say that I’m stupid and that I can’t do anything. I hate these words so much. The second time it was said to me was the next day.

Those words hurt me a lot more the second time. I had the worst last year of middle school. When she said it the second time I couldn’t hold my feelings back. I started to cry. This time I give her the power. The pain of hearing that from a teacher hurt me more then it coming from my family because I know my family is just playing around but a teacher the person that shouldn’t say those word did. From that day I started hiding my emotions from everyone and if I was sad I would have a clear expression but people didn’t know if I was sad, mad, or bored. I still do it because I’m trying to protect myself there are some people that I let near me but not so many. Those that are near me can tell the different very fast and always try to make me smile, but no mater what happens those word will never disappear from my mind, but no mater what I have people that love me and say that I’m really smart and that makes my day.

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I liked the project a lot and I was able to express how I feel about this topic well.  For this project I needed to bring up an issue relating to language identity. Many people had different ideas, because this subject could be divided into many groups. I had an easy time describing myself and making descriptive scenes. I had a tough time picking what language identity topic I would describe. I learned a lot obviously that language effects us but language really does effect us in ways we don't know sometimes.

The project is about me not speaking up, the project was my language biography. The process of my essay, was when the first time we got introduced to the topic me not speaking up popped in to my head.  First I thought about things that happened to me that had to do with  me not speaking up, and turn them in to scenes. After I remembered a couple of scenes that’s when I began to fill in my essay with details. Different things I learned when writing this essay was I grew from when I never really spoke up, to becoming sociable because people motivated me.

Introduction:
            The purpose of this project was to inform us on the idea that we all speak a language but it may show certain things about our identity. Throughout this process we’ve have talked of ways that we have language identity in our city’s, family’s, and home’s. Our assignment was to connect the language we use in our every day lives to create scenes for a larger idea, thus making our Language Auto Biography. When I wrote this the hardest part was connecting this to a larger idea but I think I’ve solved this when I made my draft.

Language Auto Biography:

I waited at the door to our hotel room with the fresh smell of groceries in my hands. I was listening and enjoying my family on a hot august day. I watched and learned a ton of language in the south. Coming from Philadelphia on they way here traveling through the states like Maryland and North Carolina the rest stop filled with strangers. At McDonald's in Virginia I found my self in the sea of dialects and accents.  During the ride we enjoyed each other’s company while we talked watch and laughed the whole ride there. During vacation I notice change in voice almost if I’ve changed who I was.

Strolling in the room while she held up a card, she gave me a look and reported. “Now this is your room card don’t lose it Rog or your butt is mine!” Now coming from the high raised eyebrow on her forehead I could tell she meant business. She quick asked “are you sure you can take care of this card cause we won’t get another.”  I grab it quick trying to run out the room, I herd her yell from out the side of my ear. “Yall better not loose it!”  Some of her accent show for minute as a walked away she changed who she was to get her point across

While I’ve noticed this from my aunt many times, I’ve also notice how she would act in her profession. Overhearing a conversation of her while she called back to her job in Pittsburgh. She seemed to present herself using Standard English which could mislead people. While everyone has an accent, but we all try to relate to people using Standard English. Why is this? Maybe we have indicated that a structured language is a language of power and we can use it to get people to understand, listen, and comprehend in the real world.

Not saying that the accents can be misunderstood, but I’m stating that we use Standard English to get our points across and to get our thoughts heard. Power is power and we need this survive our everyday jobs and lives in the business world. In a article written by James Baldwin If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is? (1979). Baldwin stated about the language equaling power, “...and connects one with, or divorces one from, the larger, public, or communal identity”. The way my aunt change her accent to relate to a client she really shows that the modern world takes advantage this language in thought that they can control people. I wondered what her client would think if she had talked with her Pittsburgh/ southern dialect would the call be totally different deal.

That summer when I noticed she wasn’t talking like my mom, her own sister, I started to understand she had some sort of dialect came in her voice. It seemed so foreign even though she was my aunt, she lives in Pittsburgh and me, in Philadelphia:; How could 5 hour distance have such a impact on the way a person talks? Seeing that this is true I can also talk to my grandmother, who is currently living in Georgia and when she arrived to our room she greeted us on as she could “So how y’all doin?”

Being with me grandmother is always like I’m meeting her for the first time not only because of the distance we live away from each other also by her accent. When I usually hear a southern accent at first glance I start thoughts of farms and a rural hot area where the people aren’t well educated, James Baldwin’s theory, of Black English evolving in the south during slavery, show how the accents of many came about. He stated that during the trip here, the whole culture of African Americans was taken away along with their languages. So using the English that they have come quick to learn during there time in slavery they would soon that structured dialect, that almost every white person in the south knew, into Black English; Something that the slave owners couldn’t understand until later after. My grandmother talked more of the English version of that but it still occurred to me that’s where her accent originated.

Our Language Identity we can find in our homes throughout our many lines of family but it always finds it’s way back to us when we get lost in the professional world. In the powerful world of jobs and professions we struggle with holding our true language identity because we some dialects are frowned upon in the eyes of power so we learn to talk the same. When we really dig deep enough i think we can really find our true language identity, but only if we take breaks from our jobs and just spend time to interact with the people around you.

Digital Story:

          Being who people want you to be, who you think you are, and who you are, are completely different things. Being who you are means expressing yourself, being the person you want to be, and doing the things you want to do.  Being who you think you are means that you are unsure of who you are and you try to be yourself. However, yourself, your personality is being compromised by what people want you to be. Being who people want you to be means that you are completely compromising your true desires to please the people around you. Ultimately I have experienced all these things. The pattern of identity is different for everyone. Some people are themselves at one point of their lives and change into the way people want them to be. Some people start off as who people want them to be and change into who they truly are. And some people go back and forth between the three levels. I was who people wanted me to be, who I think I was, and now I am Dejah.

            It all started with the way that I talk and where I come from. I am from Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My family that lives in Philadelphia lives and or grew up in the more dangerous neighborhoods. They talk very differently than I do. We all have the similar Philadelphia accent of saying water ad “wader”. However, their grammar and way of speaking is more southern and old than mine is. They say that I talk “white” because I talk properly.

            My mother and father are the entertainers of our family. We have cookouts all the time. We held one in the summer of 2008, the summer before I switched schools, and the entire family was there. Everyone sat on chairs facing tables on the lawn. My little cousins were running around everywhere and playing in a blow up pool on the sidewalk. I was sitting on my stairs waiting for one of the older women to ask me to get them a glass of water or come up to me and say “ OH MY GOSH SWEETIE! YOU GOT SO BIG! How ya doin?”. And I would answer with the same response, “I’m fine”. I didn’t say this because I couldn’t hold a conversation with someone in my family but more so because the way I talk offended them.

            If I were to have a conversation with one of my aunts they would either tell my dad how well I speak or that I talk like I think that I am better than they are. I do not think that at all. I talk with proper grammar because that is the way that I was taught to talk in school. I guess I talk the way that they feel like they are being talked down to. They never want to talk to me because of this. Therefore, I get talked about and now have the nickname Oreo, black on the outside white on the inside. Instead of fighting it and being who I wanted to be, I gave in and compromised to my family. I don’t talk improperly I just don’t talk at all. This is my way of being who they want me to be because it is easier than being myself.

            Things started to change when I changed schools in seventh grade. At my old school I was judged for talking the way I did because I went to an all African American school. I looked at this new school as a chance to start over in a new place where people don’t know me and can’t make any judgments. The school I went to was more diverse so it was better. I was still talked about because of the way that I talked. However, I started changing the way I dressed and acted. The way I dressed changed because I would buy anything I thought was pretty but nothing that went together. I owned this look because I thought it was “me”. People started talking about the way that I dressed and I thought I had to gain friends back so I started to be a little bit different to earn respect from the popular people. I was so set on who I was at this time. I thought this was just the way that I am going to be for years. In this case, I was being who I though I was. I was acting slightly in the way I wanted because, for years, I was not able to be the person that I wanted to be. However, the way I was acting was not fully “me”. My way of thinking was being compromised by the way people wanted me to be.

            Up until Fall of 2011, I was not fully acting myself. Now I am one hundred percent Dejah. Although some people in my family hate vintage clothing, I love it. I love thrift store shopping and knowing that there is an unknown story behind every piece of clothing. I dress the way I want to dress. I do my hair the way I want it to look. I care about people feeling and try to be as nice as possible. However, I do not let that impact my life to the point where I am completely unhappy. Everyone has changed throughout his or her life. But at this point in mine, I am “me”. I am not who people want me to be. I am not who I think I am. I am Dejah and will forever be Dejah.

III. Digital Story

This story is a revelation and I reflection that I had about my life.

I: Introduction & Reflection:

The task was to explore the complexity of language in one's own life. For myself, I discussed the two languages I am most familiar with and my dislike for the English language, my primary language. I took out of this that language causes barriers and more differences for people to be judged. I realized America may not be able to make two to three mandatory language classes because it's a melting pot of cultures and languages itself. But, I know America has limited it's horizons by having English as it's primary language. By having one language, that forcers people conform to that one language and being able to get around and get the necessity one needs.

II: The Autobiography

English is usually the first language of all citizens in the United States if their parents’ only language is English. The language is the primary spoken in the U.S. and it’s taken a lot of it’s content from the West Germanic Language. Although the States is a melting pot of cultures, it’s still key to know English.

With that said, it’s widely taught in schools around the world. But this isn’t the same for schools in the U.S. boundaries. Excluding bilingual oriented schools, which there aren’t many of and have private school tuition, English is a mandatory class through out any person’s schooling career. It’s been scientifically proven that the language that’s introduced to kids from ages one to three, is going to be their first language. It’s intriguing that the U.S. hasn’t taken that into consideration being that other countries teach one or two other languages in their schools. It is because the States don’t have a unified culture? Maybe, maybe not.

         For myself, the English is a boring, bland language. I’ve been speaking it my whole life and I’ve just realized my dislike for my native language. Around the middle of my sophomore year. There is no specific reason I can pinpoint, but it’s a different aspect of the language I’ve gotten in upon my entry of high school. With my aversion to English, I’ve looked into two different languages along with their cultures, German and a general perspective on Spanish.

         Through my experiences in Spanish, it didn’t entice me until I learned about it in high school. But, in the times of my previous Spanish exploration, learning about the language didn’t help with remiss teachers. Once I came to enjoy German, my distaste for my first language started to take root.

         Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, ocho, nueve, deiz. That’s all I learned in kindergarten. Then in a different school, first through second, I learned French. Till this day I only thing I can remember are the numbers. Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix. That was it from that language. After that, from third to sixth grade it was a dormant stage in my life of not learning any type of language. The school I had attended didn’t have an adequate foreign language program, so at my expense, I didn’t learn anything.

         Going to another school, for sixth grade, I picked up Spanish again. I was taught out of purple books that had supposed Hispanic aliens, with no parents traveling with them on earth. Befuddled at the sight, I had to maneuver my way of trying to understand the lesson in such a strange book. My first, of the four main teachers I had, was the most influential. She made the class memorize verses to try to retain the new language. I never successfully memorized it, but my peers did. My excuse was that I was new.

She lasted three to five months. After that, my class had different substitutes teaching us the same material over and over again. Then a Peruvian native replaced the original teacher. Upon her joining our class, she taught us the same things again, then started correcting the purple book I had became so familiar with. My peers and I suffered from her lack of knowledge how to teach her native language. By the end of the year, she was in danger of being deported. After that, Spanish became a rant session for her. About all her problems. My sixth grade year of Spanish: FAIL.

The teacher I had for seventh grade only taught the children she favored in the class. Which was one girl, who could already understand Spanish, so again the whole class suffered. My seventh grade year of “Hispanic lingo”: FAIL.

With yet another different teacher in eighth grade, she taught us the same material that we had been learning our whole middle school careers. My eighth grade year of Spanish: FAIL. After all of those experience, it’s surprised to say, this all happened in a private school.

         Upon entering highschool, I was placed in Spanish 2. I thought I had been put into the wrong class, but I was in the right place. I thought I would’ve had been able to handle the course, but the fruits of my efforts caused me to get “A’s” all quarters. Even with those “A’s”, I didn’t retain any of the information I was taught. My Hispanic friends became my “teachers” and that’s how I know the Spanish I know now, other than learning on the Internet.

In the beginning of Sophomore year, my friend began to teach me German. I wasn’t interested in it at the time, but it began to grow on me. Once I realized I liked German, I began to learn and started yet another online course. Ein, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sech, siebe, acht, nuen, zehn…  My friend would test me on the days of the weeks, “Donnerstag,” she’d say. “It’s Thursday,” I’d respond correctly. And so… “Montag, Dienstag, Mittwoch,” she’d test me. “Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.”

When I began to engage myself in German language, I began to dislike English. I felt English was dull. I had dove into the German and Spanish cultures, and to me, it seemed so much more interesting than the absent culture that English and America, as a whole has, since it’s a melting pot of many different people from all over the world.