Household Spanish, Jordan Rodriguez’s WLLN
Name: Jordan Rodriguez
Professor Orwig
English 110
Date: 2/20/2023
My Mom’s Mother who we call Grandma Martha speaks Spanish almost exclusively. My Dad’s mother worked full time when we were kids but my Mom’s mother did not. My Grandma would take care of both me and my brother when we would get sick, and we used to get sick very often as children. She only spoke to us in Spanish, so we had a language barrier. Being exposed to 2 languages led to both me and my brother having a speech issue. My parents started paying for a speech therapist for both me and my brother.
Interview question to my mom: What was Jordan’s experience with language as a child?
“I was told that it is common for boys to experience a delay in speaking. Also it was challenging since his caretaker (grandmother) spoke to him in Spanish and parents spoke in English. He received speech therapy for his delay and it helped immensely. To assist in this regard we spoke to him in English more after he was no longer in the care of his grandmother”
Grandma Martha communicates with us exclusively in Spanish, but we also had visual cues to understand what she was talking about. This led to me understanding Spanish words, but not being able to speak them. She would ask what we wanted for breakfast, but I was clueless on what she was saying. I did pick up on the word “desayuno” being the subject of the sentence. I started with “desayuno ahora” which evolved into “Yo quiero desayuno”. Once I learned how to say “I want __” and “I don’t want __” I started to just fill in the sentence. I learned the subject of every sentence, so I would say things like “Yo Quiero Jugo (juice)” or “Yo no quiero comida (food) ahora”. Learning Spanish in this way did not make me fluent in it. If you asked me how to say English words in Spanish I could not do it, but if you tell me the Spanish version, I could tell you what it means in English. This means that while I can understand what Spanish household words mean in English, I struggle more to tell you what English words mean in Spanish. And I especially cannot write or read anything in Spanish.
I only know household words like “Cuchara” and “Dormir” (Spoon and sleep) because I learned them using context clues. I only ever communicate to her saying things like “Yo quiero comida” (I want food), because I needed to. My Spanish is very poor when communicating with her, as I just combine words that I understand to create very broken sentences. For example, I often say “Yo Necesito voy par baño” when I’m at her house and need to go to the bathroom. This is not proper Spanish, but she understands what I am trying to say. She is also very very religious, and makes us pray every night. For the prayer, I have never had any idea what she is saying and just try my best to repeat it. She says 3 or 4 words, and then me and my brother repeat it. We pronounce them very poorly and she makes us repeat them if we do a really bad job, or she breaks it up into an even smaller section. My grandmother is getting older and has a caretaker in her home now. I can tell that she notices my Spanish skills are very poor based on her facial expressions. She doesn’t say anything directly to me, but she just looks and what looks like a fake smile. I feel like she’s disappointed in me, because I know my parents are disappointed in themselves for not teaching me spanish. But this disappointment is different because she isn’t family, she’s just some woman I see regularly that hears my broken spanish.
I have lived in Queens my whole life and went to Elementary, Middle, and High school there. However, since I decided to go to City College here in Manhattan, I can take a 30 minute walk to grandma Martha’s house and 30 minutes back during my lunch break. It’s a long walk but I like doing it to see her and have a home cooked meal rather than spending money on a sandwich sometimes. Because of this, these issues with speaking Spanish are pretty fresh in my mind, especially the part about being embarrassed in front of my Grandma’s caretaker. Immigrant families are often disappointed with their children if they aren’t able to learn their cultural language, but my situation is not too bad, all things considered. I know my family loves me dearly and understands my situation, but I overthink the situation a lot and feel like it is worse than it really is.
