A Journey Through Language
My relationship with Spanish has shifted a lot throughout my life. Although I was born in the U.S., Spanish was my first language — my parents figured I would learn English eventually. Sure enough, by age 4 I was bilingual, and teaching it to my little brothers (watching many hours of PBS Kids paid off).
Growing up, I didn’t realize that words could mean different things in different countries, even if those countries spoke the same language. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t notice a variation in the way my Colombian father and Puerto Rican mother spoke Spanish. I knew that there could be two different words for the same thing, such as “mantecado” or “helado” for ice cream, but I didn’t start to associate them with their respective countries until I was a teenager.
I’ve been to Puerto Rico almost every summer of my life. My abuelo and one of his brothers married my abuela and one of her sisters, so I have a very large extended family. My cousins and I would house hop in the neighborhood since everyone who lived there was a relative. Whenever the adults got tired of us, we’d move to the next house in search of candy or a hammock to push each other on.
There isn’t much to do in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico except spend time outside.
We’d climb trees, explore my abuelo’s land, chase chickens, jump on the trampoline until we couldn’t breathe, listen to music in the marquesina, and play escondite, or hide and seek.
We watched our Tías butcher chickens for caldo de pollo once, and once was enough. My brothers and I would fight over where to sleep because a rooster always sang under the window of the middle room — and nobody likes being woken up at 3:00 a.m. for no reason.
It wasn’t until I was 15 that I visited Colombia for the first time and realized how much I was influenced by Puerto Rico. I vividly remember asking my cousin and aunt where the “zafacón” was and they didn’t understand what I was saying until I held up my empty water bottle. They laughed and told me the right word was “basura.”
The 2010 World Cup was happening the same year I was there and although Colombia didn’t get very far, the country oozed infectious energy and excitement. On walks around Chía and Bogotá, there were parks and bars that had soccer games constantly playing. Shakira’s “Waka Waka” played everywhere, too, and a flood of memories comes to me when I hear it now.
Spanish is a lot more complex than what’s taught in public schools. I remember sitting in class thinking, “no one talks like this.” I even got words wrong on a test because I didn’t write them down exactly the way the textbook did. Don’t even get me started on having to do conjugations for vos.
I lost some of the language when I moved out to go to college. I wasn’t speaking it as often and my mom corrected a lot of my conjugations when we spoke over the phone. My vocabulary also became more basic. I took summer classes every year and couldn’t visit Puerto Rico until I graduated. What was once something that came so naturally to me became increasingly more challenging. I downloaded Duolingo one year to brush up on my skills and after taking the assessment, my results told me that I was a beginner, which honestly offended me. But it was also a realization of how badly I needed to practice.
My Spanish still isn’t the best now that I’m in my late 20s, but it has improved. I listen to a lot of Latin music and want to read books in Spanish to expand my vocabulary. Sometimes I still don’t know if certain words are a “Puerto Rican-ism” or legitimate. But instead of being embarrassed by it, I’ve learned to accept it as part of who I am. I do miss the time when I was younger when I could easily shift my thoughts from English to Spanish.
In teaching me their native language at a young age, my parents gave me the ability to connect with my heritage and communicate with my extended family. They taught me to be curious about the countries they came from and learn their histories. There’s so much diversity in the Hispanic and Latin community and I’m proud to represent a piece of it.
