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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
Learning Spanish Shifted the Direction of My Life
People I met in Mexico pointed me to a different way to live
I spent most of my twenties earning a PhD in English. As I was finishing up, I couldn’t find a job. Rather than take adjunct work, I decided to step off my academic career path and do something I’d been wanting to do — work in Latin America.
In my final year of graduate school, I enrolled in freshman Spanish. Starting a new language as I was finishing my doctorate felt like being born all over again. I didn’t have to be an expert or impress anyone. Best of all, I learned Spanish through relationships with people who, in sharing their language, shared their lives, and profoundly changed how I live mine.
A few weeks after graduation, I flew to Mexico City. For most of my life, I’d leaned on my verbal ability and intelligence to gain the acceptance of others. Now, barely conversational in the language, I needed to draw upon other aspects of myself.
My contact in Mexico was a woman named Lucía. She and her husband coordinated a program that introduces young Americans to international mission work. A housemate of mine who had spent a year working in an orphanage in Mexico through this program had connected me with Lucía. Even…
