Isac Arriola
9/29/2022
ENGL110- Professor Velez
Within my essay, I wanted to capture the importance of language and literacy in my life through the language of Spanish. Writing about this made me realize it’s able to capture the attention of those that come from parents unfamiliar with the English language, specifically I’d go as far to say other Spanish speakers that are first generation born here with immigrant parents. Within my neighborhood I feel my story can relate to many of these fellow kids as I see it pretty common where we have to translate for our parents about buying something or even making text messages for them, my story is one that many among many are able to relate to and this is captured as well through the use of pathos I apply with specific details that as mentioned, other kids might’ve experienced. Writing this assignment and watching as well as reading many other experiences with language helped me understand how beautiful language truly is, and the fact we all tend to use it so differently that sometimes you don’t even realize! Amy Tan’s story hit home the hardest as her experiences as a child is something I 90% felt as I too have gone through what she has, as she mentions having to make phone calls for her mother and acknowledging how because her mother didn’t have perfect English, she’d be looked the other way; and seeing that sucks, because it’s unfair to be turned away because a person doesn’t want to pay mind to you just because you have a different dialect of English, it’s as being treated like you’re less than them which is straight discriminatory. And this is a common theme that we’ve seen displayed in which all of these speakers have experienced a form of discrimination because of the way they speak, it’s unjust and shouldn’t be something occurring in our society. Saleem targets this well in claiming how most people go by their definition of perfect and turn away from minorities, in which he even got to experience people ridiculing his accent within the voiceovers he did. Overall this assignment has made me realize and understand situations that others go through, and it truly is something impactful to that many students should get a grasp of seeing and understanding, and I’m ever so grateful this class demonstrated these lessons for us. I’d like to state as well that this course has helped me further understand in captivating on personal experiences within writings as originally this essay was intended to talk about 3 aspects of language and literacy in my life, those being Spanish, dialects and writing itself however after seeing the responses to the first chunk discussing the impact of Spanish in my day to day life, and experiences with my grandparents, I decided to make the essay solely on that. And with diving into specific examples, I believe it made my essay stand out even further alongside with the SLLN video which ties more to the last paragraphs in which I discuss my own personal use of Spanish and its place throughout the school life, but the point I’m exclaiming is that, being able to state what you want to say on a personal level truly reaches out to your audience on a deeper spectrum which is a great strategy into making your audience further understand points being addressed.
Language and literacy, two things we use everyday of our lives that we don’t entirely go in depth to think about, however it just so happens to be so complex from the different ways it’s used by everyone. The idea of language and literacy seems so colorful with everyone being different about it, yet it feels so black and white with people only seeing a “correct” use of literacy and language. As a 1st generation child of immigrants from El Salvador, I’ve witnessed the struggles that my grandparents experienced and even assisted them through it, and after listening to Amy Tan’s experiences, I feel that I can indeed relate to her experience with her mother.
My grandparents know a decent amount of English, they have a moderate understanding of certain words and vocabulary but still struggle to form “proper” sentences along with writing out words that are close to how they’re spelt. For me, English and Spanish were my first languages, however I have a better comprehension of English rather than Spanish, which sets up well opportunities for me to assist them and vice versa. Some examples I can think of consist of my grandma asking me to send messages to her boss, whether being little questions asking about schedule change or to inform any news occurring, I oblige as my grandma notices that her English whilst typing isn’t grammatically correct and I proceed to write formally for her. An example I can think of is from 2 nights ago, she came up to me asking to read a message of a new nanny position stating “Hi, I met you from Melissa and would like to know if you’d be interested working 8-4 by somewhere in Manhattan (it didn’t actually say somewhere)” and she wanted me to respond with a “Hi, yes that sound good” while grasping the idea of what she wanted to say, I inserted “Hi this is Vilma, the offering sounds good, I’ll come by!” As can be seen by both views of the sentences, I tend to try and sound very formal whilst writing for her, just to add a few points in maybe her bosses liking her writing.
In addition, my grandpa tends to ask me to do phone calls for him, as he also attempts to speak “proper” English to whoever is on the other line and when he can’t understand, he requests for a Spanish speaker or to have me do it for him. Some examples that come at the top of my head are when speaking to his lawyer, now I don’t overhear the exact details of what goes on before he approaches me but I would imagine him speaking like this “Yes, Hello this is Rigoberto, I call for case ###” and it’s probably until then he comes and asks me to speak and after I just translate to him. A recent call back in July went along the lines about the defendant still not responding and that things will be going along some sort of section number and there’s going to be a meeting discussing it and to call back July 21. My translation comes in with “El abogado dicho que ellos tovia no responde y que ahora ellos estan haciendo un nuevo section y van a tener un meeting y para llamar regreso el 21.”
While these are simply harmless examples and just good deeds I’m conducting for them, I believe little things like these demonstrate how language and literacy play a big role in my life as there exists a language barrier for my grandparents and other people around in which I step in to be a translator, sometimes during this I end up with a mixed dialect of both languages where I add English words into Spanish since I’m unfamiliar with some terms in Spanish and translating from English. I’d even point out the fact that with other family members, I struggle with speaking to them in Spanish due to the fact I lack full understanding of the language, and it’s something I always keep track of when communicating to be grammatically correct and not speak a sentence that’s broken. I believe that with my language and literacy skills of English and Spanish, if improved it’d be advantageous as being bilingual would put me in a position to reach out to an even bigger crowd, and it’s something my grandparents remind me that I should take into consideration when looking at certain careers and positions.
Overall I believe the use of Spanish is important to my daily life of language and literacy and will always continue in my day to day life, I believe it to be an overall important part for many other Spanish speakers as well for it is a part of our culture. For people like me that are 1st generation kids born here in the US they may definitely relate to examples like mine and Amy Tan’s, even to those that are bilingual and feel that they contain a “broken English” worry not, for that is your language. Just as my Spanish isn’t the best, I can be grammatically incorrect sometimes, it is still, My Spanish.
