Language as a means of communication
When I was growing up in the ’50’s, my mother refused to teach me Spanish. Her reason for doing so stemmed from a confrontation that she had with a teacher of one of my older siblings. My siblings solely spoke Spanish in the home. When they went to school, they knew very little English. My mother had come to this country when she was a child and had learned English on her own when she went to school, so she figured her children would do the same. Apparently, the teacher thought different and scolded my mom harshly when the youngest of my older siblings went to school speaking only Spanish. The result was that my mom immediately set down a new law in our home. No one spoke Spanish except her and my dad. We could only speak English. Talk about bilingual education!
Today the New York Times published an article essentially stating that not much has changed in 50 years, although stereotypes and nativist extremist groups espouse an entirely different belief.
For more info click here or copy and paste the following link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/us/30immig.html?th&emc=th
By the way, I finally learned to speak Spanish in college, from professors who came from Germany and studied in Spain, from a Cuban, a Peruvian, a Bostonian and a Spaniard! The dialects and pronunciations that I learned were confusing! (added to the Spanish I knew from my “bilingual” conversations with my mother)
When I went out to the community and began to speak Spanish, the comments and responses were deflating, so I had to start over and learn it again as it is spoken here in the Midwest.
Think I do okay, all things considering, ¿que no?
