SBS 301 Cultural Diversity/Prof.
Koptiuch
Fall 2014 Personal Memory
Ethnographies
Janeth
Solorio
Don’t
Speak English?
You
Don’t Belong Here
My
parents are Mexican. They were both born and raised
in Mexico. They didn’t move
to the United States till they were in their late
teens. They just had gotten
married and were ready to start a family. They
didn’t have a chance to go to
school and learn the basics required for living in
the United States, for
example, learning English. When searching for jobs
they would get lucky and get
hired with companies who had many bilingual people.
They learned the basics
when other people who were actually from here put
them on the spot. People
would question my parents’ abilities and would rub
in their faces trying to
comprehend why they could not understand English.
When growing up I would
always translate for them trying to make their
everyday life at ease without
worrying that they were living in a foreign place
without being able to
communicate.
I
moved to the United States when I was
15 years old. Even though I emigrated from Mexico
at such a young age, I did
not get the opportunity to go to school and learn
English. Twenty years ago it
was not a big deal if I did not speak English
because I was doing what I came
to this country to do, work. Years went by and I
got married and had my
children. Throughout the years I learned the
basics of the English language. I
know enough to survive the basic every day life
scenarios but I cannot carry on
a full conversation. As my children grew older,
they would always translate for
me when I needed some type of translation because
are billingual. Due to this,
I developed a dependency on them. Every time I had
an appointment, Janeth was
the first one to volunteer to go with me to
translate.
When
my parents went to parent/teacher conferences I
would translate most of the time.
I always told them the truth though, I never took
advantage of the language
barrier and I always told them exactly what teachers
would say about me. At
doctor visits it would be the same thing. One time
my dad had a tumor in his
back, and I had to give my parents the bad news. The
doctor told me that his
tumor was cancerous, so I had to explain to my
parents what was going to
happen. One time my father had to go to a doctor’s
appointment with the oncologist.
I was supposed to catch up with him at the office
but I got held back due to
traffic. He went ahead and went inside to check in
and let them know he was
there. Once inside he tried to tell the secretary
that he had an appointment
for Jose. With just knowing how to say “appointment”
he felt confident that the
secretary would know what he was there for and who
he was. She kept saying
“What?” “What? Speak proper.” “You live in America,
speak English.”
As
I tried to explain to the secretary
that I had a doctor’s appointment, she started
asking me questions. I couldn’t
completely comprehend what was she was saying so I
started to get nervous. She
could see that I was nervous so she started
questioning why I didn’t speak
English. That I did understand. I could see it in
her eyes that she looked at
me as if I was an inferior immigrant to her. I had
been in this country for
more that 20 years, and I had never in my life
seen so much hatred in someone’s
eyes. She kept staring at me as if I was magically
going to start having a full
conversation with her in English. I felt so
humiliated and embarrassed. I could
see I was the only Hispanic in that office and did
not belong there.I had to make up my mind and decide if I
should stay and feel humiliated throughout my
whole appointment or leave and
never come back. I decided to leave.
My
father felt humiliated, and left the office. That is
when I arrived. I could
see in his eyes that he was so ashamed that he just
wanted to leave and go
home. He told me he didn’t want to go to his
appointment and wanted to
reschedule. Not until we got home did I find out why
he was so upset. I was
horrified. I had never felt so angry in my life. I
had never seen the effects
of racism so in my face as on that day. Did the
secretary talk to my father
like that because he is Mexican? Or was it because
he didn’t speak English? I
was so upset. What happened to this country full of
diversity? What happened to
this county’s openness to other cultures? That is
all I could think about.
Whites
have
always been the biggest race in the United States.
In 2005 the
Mexican-American population became the largest race
in three states,
California, Texas, and New Mexico.That
brought much tension to many states close to the
border. In 2006 many protests
starting throughout the country, which brought much
attention to the Hispanic
community.Protestors
wanted to have
some type of immigration reform. It also brought
tension to many white people
who did not like Hispanics in “their” country. They
saw even us-born Hispanics
as problematic, and did not want them in their
country. I remember hearing a
lot of people saying that if Hispanics wanted to be
here in the country they
would need to learn English and if they wouldn’t
learn the language then what’s
the point of them living in the country.
I
had never been in a situation like
this. I mean this country is known to be the
country where all different
cultures come and make a new life here. Why did
the secretary mistreat me? Am I
an idiot? Is it because I’m Mexican? Does she hate
me, and does she think I
don’t belong here where I have lived and worked
and raised my family for many
years? I have never been so disappointed until
today.
In
2010 Arizona, passed the SB 1070 law, which allowed
police officers to combat
illegal immigration through ethnic profiling. In
other words anyone who
appeared to be Hispanic could get pulled over and
asked to prove proper
documentation. With this law, any Hispanic could be,
not only immigrants. With
all this anti-immigrant sentiment going around it
created a lot of tension
among people in Arizona. Once I started noticing my
family getting affected by
this, I started to realize that I live in a state
where many people believed that
only being white is acceptable.
Not
until my dad felt humiliated for not speaking
English did I notice that there
was is discrimination around. Back in 1998 Arizona
passed a law that declared
English to be the only official language to be
spoken. This was so racist. This
country is known for its diversity. On any day one
can meet someone from a
completely different country who probably doesn’t
speak the same language as
you, so why put someone down for that? Who defines
what language is better? No
one should put someone down just because they don’t
speak the same language.
Language barriers have always been around but it
wasn’t till my dad went
through it and was mistreated because of it, did I
realize that this brought
racism.