Thursday, November 13, 2003, 17:36 GMT
Ok. I said shite not because I was trying to be trendy...I was trying to avoid any automatic censorship on these board, but it looks like there is none.
Right. Ok. I agree with Californian about other languages sounding more beautiful to my ears. I suppose that all this has to do with cultural things as well. Some of us in America who are not of the Anglo-saxon/European majority often feel conflicted about this. Like in my case, I live in a part of California where there are so many illegal immigrants from Mexico that a guy who looks like me gets lumped in with that because my look is ambiguous but definitely "too ethnic" to ever be mistaken for "white."
I'm not saying it's a racial issue per se but looking back into my geneology (sic) I've found no less than 8 different components, Dutch, Native American Indian (2 different tribes), French-Canadian, Italian, Spanish, Galician....with a mix like that, I don't identify with any one culture but I get lumped into what I look closest to. In this environment I'm considered Mexican by the whites and the Mexicans (believe me, it's that black and white in this area-no blacks, asians, anyone else to be seen) but yet I speak perfect American english, something that surprises many of them.
I had a professor the other day who said how shocked he was that a native Spanish speake like me had such a great English vocabulary. I almost slapped him. I'm disenchanted enough being in a country that teaches you about how the white european made America great from Kindergarten through 12th grade and then flips it around on you in college saying how evil the white man is for destroying "indigenous" culture.
A guy like me doesn't know what to think. I mean, I am capable of so much in English, but at the same time I think that becoming fluent in another language would give me so many more tools for enrichment as a person. Maybe it sounds pompous...but it's how I feel.
However, I have no desire to learn the 2nd dominant U.S. language, Mexican Spanish. Once you spend 11 years of your life in a Mexican-American ghetto you'll understand why.
Right. Ok. I agree with Californian about other languages sounding more beautiful to my ears. I suppose that all this has to do with cultural things as well. Some of us in America who are not of the Anglo-saxon/European majority often feel conflicted about this. Like in my case, I live in a part of California where there are so many illegal immigrants from Mexico that a guy who looks like me gets lumped in with that because my look is ambiguous but definitely "too ethnic" to ever be mistaken for "white."
I'm not saying it's a racial issue per se but looking back into my geneology (sic) I've found no less than 8 different components, Dutch, Native American Indian (2 different tribes), French-Canadian, Italian, Spanish, Galician....with a mix like that, I don't identify with any one culture but I get lumped into what I look closest to. In this environment I'm considered Mexican by the whites and the Mexicans (believe me, it's that black and white in this area-no blacks, asians, anyone else to be seen) but yet I speak perfect American english, something that surprises many of them.
I had a professor the other day who said how shocked he was that a native Spanish speake like me had such a great English vocabulary. I almost slapped him. I'm disenchanted enough being in a country that teaches you about how the white european made America great from Kindergarten through 12th grade and then flips it around on you in college saying how evil the white man is for destroying "indigenous" culture.
A guy like me doesn't know what to think. I mean, I am capable of so much in English, but at the same time I think that becoming fluent in another language would give me so many more tools for enrichment as a person. Maybe it sounds pompous...but it's how I feel.
However, I have no desire to learn the 2nd dominant U.S. language, Mexican Spanish. Once you spend 11 years of your life in a Mexican-American ghetto you'll understand why.