Language and Identity
The struggle for cultural identity in a global society where people commonly cross international borders, make relationships outside of their own culture, and create blended families is nothing new. My grandparents were part of an influx of immigrants into the United States which resulted in their own little melting pot.
My paternal grandfather, an immigrant from Greece, married a Welch-American woman. My maternal grandfather, a Mexican of Spanish descent, married a Yaqui woman whose family worked for his.
Side note: Those combinations were so unusual for their time that there had to be a great story behind each. Stories that are lost because unlike today when our deepest darkest secrets are fodder for the internet, my grandparents never spoke about themselves. I deliberately took my mother and two aunts to lunch for the sole purpose of learning about how their parents came together. All three blinked like I just asked them to explain string theory. They echoed, “No one ever talked about those things back then.” Those things? I didn’t ask them to confess to the crime of the century.
This combination of ethnicities makes me a classic American mutt. My apologies to anyone offended by the word, but I think mutts are the best, so I’m happy to claim the designation. For those who lost count, I am Greek, Welsh, Spanish, and Yaqui. And I don’t speak any of those languages. How is that possible growing up in a house with a father who spoke Greek and a mother who spoke Spanish?
Though my father was born in Cleveland, OH, he was raised in Greece. When he returned to the states in his teens, he preferred to learn English by skipping school and going to the movies. Back then, there was no such thing as ESL, English as a second language classes. Learning English was a struggle for him. When my sister and I were kids, my father would not let mother speak Spanish to us because he thought it would be confusing. Now we know that children are language sponges. I often joked with him, “Do you know how much money you’ve cost me because I’m not bilingual?” In my 20’s, I worked for the State of Texas and many government agencies paid bilingual employees more.
As a result of my father’s influence, I spent most extended family outings not understanding the casual chatter taking place around me. I did know when my mother and the aunties discussed something I wasn’t supposed to hear, because they switched from TexMex (half English, half Spanish) to all Spanish.
On the other side of the language fence, my Sundays were spent in a Greek Orthodox church where the service was held in – wait for it – Greek. “It’s all Greek to me” was never more apropos. My father did not have family in Houston, so I wasn’t exposed to his language the way I was to Spanish, which I had a basic understanding of simply through regular exposure. Other than church, I rarely heard Greek spoken. Then one day, with my father having a change of heart about the whole confusing argument, I found myself back at church for Greek lessons. I never understood what the purpose of that class was since every kid in there spoke the language except me. It was a relief when mother had a car wreck and refused to drive resulting in no one to take me to class.
Fast forward to 2011, when the Peace Corps recruiter asked how I would feel living in a place where I didn’t understand the language, I said, “At home.”
There is a reason why it is considered bad manners to speak in a language not understood by everyone in the room. It is a very direct statement – deliberate or not – that you are not part of our group, family, community. As a kid, I felt like an outsider even within my own family. Never fully Mexican. Never fully Greek.
This is where it could be argued that I should learn to speak Spanish or Greek. I’ve lost count of how many conversational Spanish classes I’ve taken. My tongue is not linguistically inclined. I have a hard enough time with English. Then there is the deep-rooted fear of getting it wrong, courtesy of my mother. High school Spanish should not have been hard. Afterall, I had someone at home to practice with. The first time I ran a few phrases by mother, the response was, “That’s not how you say that”, “They’re teaching you Castilian Spanish”, “What are they teaching you that for? No one speaks like that”. My mother can spit venom like a sharpshooting cobra, but she had a point. Many of my Texas born Hispanic classmates also had trouble with the class. Imagine someone from the deep South having a conversation with a Brit.
As recently as four years ago – pre-COVID – I took a conversational Spanish class and ran a couple of phrases that my grandmother used past my teacher, and she looked at me as if I had threatened obscenities against her mother.
I have given up on the learning a second language thing. The family members who made me feel so out of place all those years ago have passed on or blown away with the winds. I can appreciate the beautiful music of languages without feeling the need to belong. I have plenty of other reasons to feel out of place, thank you very much.