Cultural amnesia, I don’t think there’s a tick box for that on medical forms. Conversations come up in which I have to admit I don’t speak Spanish. They go something like this:
“Where are you from? You’re tan and, you know, the curly hair…”
“Oh, I’m Dominican and English mixed.”
“That’s so cool — you speak Spanish?”
“Nah, not really.”
“Oh…”
If I had a penny for every time I’ve had variations of this conversation, with friends, distant relatives on my English side, partners, my partners’ parents (you get the idea), I’d have enough money to actually pay for the language lessons myself. I am the platano that fell far from the tree. A tree of connection that withered before it could blossom. Now I’m in my late teens, my brain losing its sponge capacity year by year.
I am the platano that fell far from the tree. A tree of connection that withered before it could blossom.
My mother moved from the predominantly Latin and Hispanic quarters of Washington Heights, New York City to quaint North London when she married my dad. She is fluent in Spanish and for a period of my childhood, I recall my dad picking it up to a conversational level. I ask him why he learnt Spanish. For him, it was partly courtesy for his wife’s family and partly curiosity from mixing with the parents at my in my very cosmopolitan Church of England primary school. Most of my friends’ parents spoke Spanish, and I was always jealous of their ease of communication and confused about my lack-thereof.
In his attempts to maintain idle parent playground chatter, it seemed everyone around me, except me, was bilingual. It seemed everyone around me— again, except for me — had this shared experience of growing up in a colurful Latin household. And so it is that today I identify more with what’s on the front of my passport more than the girl I see in the mirror.
My mother now cringes at the question: “Why didn’t you teach me Spanish, Mami?” She acted on the desire, upon moving to the UK and deciding to raise me and my brother here, to fit in somewhere new. I am now faced with reconciling how this displaced me further from a home I never knew. I cannot code switch with family with ease when visiting New York where my Abuela jokingly scolds her for not doing her duty in teaching us Spanish. I too cringe at those awkward moments where I can only get as far as the pleasantries of hello, how are you? and the conversations reach an anticipated lull.
I asked her this question a lot as I went through secondary school to college. Choosing French over Spanish as my optional language class has left me feeling foolish. I now channel the feeling that I should be able to speak it, to forgive my past-self. The past self that decided it was above me to learn the colors and the numbers up to 20 all over again. I know deep down it is in my blood. On the tip of my mother-tongue.
My desire to learn only grows greater when I’m invited out to Latin clubs in university by friends. Listening to the soulful lyrics that tell stories of adoration and passion, so rooted in our relationship-oriented culture, I wish I could understand. When I’m asked if I know the song playing, I smile and nod, lying sheepishly and mouthing the vowels of words I can feel out.
Language would allow me to nurture the relationships I’ve lost out on. The relationship with myself being the most fundamental of them all. For my family to really know who I am and for me to know them beyond the face value of “I love the chicken and rice, Abuela, thank you!” Abuela, meaning grandmother, one of the few words I did grow up to be very familiar with.
It’s familiar. The whole making small talk at gatherings with relatives you haven’t seen since you were four. It’s even more awkward making small talk with the people you should be closest to but there’s a wall you can’t break down — the wall between words, between worlds.
When I’m asked if I know the song playing, I smile and nod, lying sheepishly and mouthing the vowels of words I can feel out.
Language shapes our identity, our stories, and relationships. Communication is key and not just when trying to diffuse an argument but when trying to learn more about the people you love. Knowing there’s a part of you they will always see as less able or on the outskirts of the family. The fruit that got bruised in transit. A Latina but not a real Dominican. The feeling of being “not real” only motivates me now to learn slowly whenever I can.
Reconnecting with something that is supposed to be natural puts me in that gray area, “I don’t speak Spanish, but I’m learning.” It’s not her fault she didn’t teach me, I could have been more adamant as a child. I still have time to ripen with the rest of the bunch. It’s in my blood, but not in my head. It’s in my head, but my heart is still trying to forgive the past and build a more literate future.
