Nicole Fernandez

Spanish

Spanish was my first language, but growing up and having friends who don’t really know Spanish well, it messed with my understanding of the language. It was not until my family decided for my cousin and I to go to Mexico every summer. It really helped a lot with speaking Spanish. Especially communicating and learning slang from Mexico was very interesting. Going to Mexico and being the only American there wasn’t so bad. We had so much freedom to explore our culture.

I specifically remember this one time, we were around the age of 8-10 and we hung out with cousins of our age. We were at the park and they asked us how it was like to live in New York and the language barrier. They would ask us, “¿oye, como se dice helado en ingles? ”. (how do you say ice cream in english). We would respond “i-ce cr-eam”, and the accents our cousins had were the same as our parents. They had slowly developed their own English language. As for us, our level of Spanish wasn’t so great. I would always try to say it in English acting like they would actually understand me, then say it in Spanglish with a frustrated tone. After helpingme out with pronunciation, I felt proud that I can now use the word with confidence. In many hispanic cultures we have different ways of saying things. In my culture instead of saying, “merienda”, as a snack we say, “botanas”. And being in Mexico has taught me a lot of those phrases, where I can now proudly use them with my family and friends.

Growing up more we eventually stopped going to Mexico and I started to lose my spanish. Slowly I started to become those “yo no sabo kids”’. I felt very disappointed in myself, it’s been 8 years and I only spoke spanish to very few of my family members. Something in me was like I needed to go back to my childhood memories. I miss going out, playing with cousins, friends and not worrying about homework. Now I am 18 and have so much on my plate going on, going to a new school, looking for a job, identity crisis, and a long distance relationship. But something in me really needed to go back and reconnect with my culture.

One day in April, my cousin and I were talking about traveling. We both knew what we had in mind. Not only were we old enough to do more than my grandmother’s yard, we were old enough to travel anywhere in the City of Mexico. We were so full of joy knowing we were going back. We had planned how we were going to travel to mountains, other towns, rivers…etc. And to kill time, I wanted to practice my Spanish. So I made it a rule to talk only Spanish at home. Since I was already home 90% of the time. And it helped a little. By the time July came, I was ready. We flew to Mexico and got greeted by everyone. “Cómo estás, mira que grande estás”. It was my time to shine and show how much I’ve been practicing. “Estoy bien, y usted cómo ha estado”. I never felt so proud saying that. Being in Mexico was my safe place. I felt free to do whatever I wanted, without having to be lectured or even judged. And people praise me for being American. I’m not so proud to be American but it has its benefits so I was somewhat proud.

While being here, I got to relive my childhood memories. Not only that, but I also got to discover my culture again and even more this time. I got to experience the hardships of living here, how the money is different, transit, more food, dangerous places, and no technology. In a way I was grateful. Grateful, to be Mexican. Grateful to know Mexico. And most grateful to be able to speak spanish proudly.