Juan often jokes that he loves to hear himself talk. He says he can go on and on for hours, maybe days. Born and raised in Chicago by parents who immigrated from Mexico just two months before his birth, Juan considers himself lucky to be able to hear himself talk in both Spanish and English, comparing his chosen language at any given moment to the medium in which an artist chooses to work. While Juan now views his bilingualism as an asset, he acknowledges this was not always the case. He describes trying to remain bilingual in a largely monolingual society as a battle, one he says he has fought his entire life. In order to understand my friend Juan’s experiences of language and literacy as a bilingual Mexican American living in Chicago, I conducted a brief interview with him over the phone and over email. We discussed his relationship with both Spanish and English, how being bilingual has been a source of both insecurity and confidence, and what he would like to see change about how bilingualism, especially for Latinx people living in the United States, is viewed by society.
Juan’s parents came to Chicago from Guanajuato, Mexico in 1988 and spoke only rudimentary English – enough to enable them to find work at restaurants in their new home, but little more. Juan was born shortly after their arrival, making him the eldest of his two siblings who would be born over the next five years. Juan says that his first language is Spanish: it is the language his parents speak at home to him and his siblings, and it is the language he and his siblings use when communicating with each other. The family watches television in Spanish, listens mainly to music in Spanish, reads primarily Spanish-language news and websites, and now even text and email each other in Spanish. Juan cannot recall ever receiving formal instruction in Spanish – he learned the language entirely through his family and media like television, music, and magazines. Because of this, Juan says his relationship with Spanish can be a bit confusing: he at once feels very comfortable speaking it or writing it, but he also feels insecure in his mastery of the language at an “academic” level. Because of this, Juan admits to feeling “smarter” when he speaks English, reflecting a sort of internal hierarchy of languages in Juan’s mind. Because of his background and experiences with language use, he thinks of Spanish as primarily personal, casual, and domestic and English as primarily public, formal, and academic/professional.
To Juan, Spanish is the language of family. In what may or may not be a coincidence, he says that he feels most confident in his Spanish when he is discussing “domestic” topics: family, food, and feelings. I asked him if he thought this could be because he grew up speaking Spanish mainly at home and not in institutional settings like school, which he thought made perfect sense. While he recalls speaking Spanish socially to friends at school during recess, he never spoke it in the classroom and cannot recall every speaking it in a professional setting. He also admits to sometimes having difficulty telling stories about his family in English when asked. During our interview, for example, when I asked him about how his parents view his bilingualism, he immediately started to respond in Spanish. He says it’s almost instinctual: when he thinks of his family, he thinks in Spanish because that is the language of their relationship. He says that it’s hard to tell a story about his father in English because he’s never heard his father tell a story in English; it just doesn’t even occur to him. It’s not that his father lacks skills in English anymore, but he chooses to speak to his family in Spanish because it’s how he feels most comfortable. Juan says that, in a way, keeping Spanish as his “family language” is a way of honoring his parents and the sacrifices they made to enable him to be bilingual in the first place.
At the same time, Juan was born in and grew up in Chicago and therefore learned English alongside Spanish because it was everywhere: on television, on the radio, heard on the streets, and seen on signs around the family’s home in Rogers Park. It wasn’t until he was enrolled in school and started making English-speaking friends that he began to regularly use the language, however. Most of Juan’s childhood friends were also bilingual children of immigrants, but he cannot recall speaking much Spanish with them, even in the park or on the playground. In Juan’s mind, this makes sense: often children of immigrants are officially bilingual but gravitate toward English as a way of claiming their “American-ness.” It’s possible that speaking English represented a certain independence or maturity to Juan, and it could also be that Juan recognized early on that speaking English would distinguish him as “different” than his parents. Because of the emphasis on Spanish in his home, however, Juan considers English to be his second language, even if he feels more comfortable with it outside the home.
Juan recalls that both his parents and his teachers seemed to have been pushing him toward developing his English over his Spanish, something that Juan both appreciates and resents. As previously stated, Juan received no formal education in Spanish and was not enrolled in a program that could conceivable be considered bilingual. Schoolwork was in English and English only. Juan wishes that he had been encouraged to practice his Spanish in school and that he had the opportunity to learn Spanish at the same level he learned English. He says that he feels like the goal of his early education was to drive out all traces of his Mexican heritage in his speech, which he now views almost as an act of violence. He’s not aware of there being an opportunity for him to learn Spanish in the way he now would have preferred, but he knows his parents would not have supported it if there had been. Juan notes that while his parents speak Spanish to him and his siblings, they have always expected their children to use English outside their home. This was a clearly stated expectation: Juan’s parents specifically told their children that they must speak English if they were to succeed in life. For example, Juan clearly remembers his father chastising him after he heard him speaking Spanish with some of his neighborhood friends as they played soccer on their street. While this rule seemed overwhelmingly strict at the time, Juan knows now that his father wanted a better life for him, one where Juan was not stigmatized for his language like his parents were. Because of this, Juan says that he is happy overall with being pushed toward English. He wishes, however, that they could have struck a balance in stressing the importance of Spanish to maintaining their cultural heritage and speaking English skillfully to succeed in American society.
The most difficult aspect of being bilingual for Juan has been a pervasive pattern of being made to feel inadequate because of his use of languages. Especially in his youth, Juan recalls being teased and mocked by both his Spanish-speaking and English-speaking peers for seemingly not speaking either language perfectly. In a sense, Juan felt that he couldn’t win and didn’t truly belong to any linguistic community. Though he has always spoken English without an accent, Juan believes that simply being visibly Latinx has marked his English as being remedial. He says that he cannot count the number of times that a (usually white) stranger has assumed he can only speak Spanish, something Juan can only understand as racist. Juan sincerely believes that white society will never be able to accept his English because of the color of his skin, no matter how naturally or comfortably he speaks it. In short, his experiences have led him to believe that he can never claim ownership of a language (English) he’s always known. At the same time, he is painfully aware of the fact that his family in Mexico hears his Spanish as subpar and “too American.” For example, Juan says that his family, especially the older generation that includes his tíos and tías, regularly teases him about his Spanish and even sometimes call him “John” instead of Juan because of his accent.
Overall, however, Juan regards being bilingual as liberating. He feels that he is able to communicate with and better understand more people, and he has found this to be especially meaningful when he travels. For example, when Juan travelled to Spain three years ago, he says his ability to communicate with the locals, despite speaking different varieties of Spanish, opened up doors to experiences he otherwise wouldn’t have had. This is also true when he visits Mexico and says he feels a sense of “home” there because he can hear Spanish everywhere despite having never lived there. While much of his family in Mexico teases him for speaking Spanish with an American accent, Juan knows that being able to communicate with them is invaluable. He says that he would rather be teased by them than not be able to communicate with them at all. His ability to communicate in more than one way makes him feel confident and self-sufficient, and it allows him to maintain a link to people around the world.
Juan simply cannot understand how our society has arrived at a place where being bilingual is viewed as a negative. He is well-aware of the fact that being bilingual is considered an asset for white people, and he points to the fact that both of his sisters have worked as nannies for white families that specifically hired them for their ability to speak and teach Spanish. The only explanation he can offer as to why this does not work both ways is racism. I asked him if he thought it would be possible to divorce language and race, and he is not so sure: he feels that the devaluing of Spanish has run so deep that even Latinx people like him have internalized it. Going forward, Juan would like to see people bilingual in Spanish/English like he and his sisters be admired and highly sought-after for their ability to communicate in more than one language. Ideally, he’d like to see bilingual children like him being educated in both languages, giving them the confidence to withstand the critiques from those who think they must not speak any one language well. Furthermore, Juan says that he believes bilingualism is going to be a minimum requirement for meaningful participation in the world either in his lifetime or soon thereafter. If we were to separate race and language and understand bilingualism as potentially benefitting everyone, Juan says, perhaps we would find that communicating, getting along, and making meaningful social progress is easier than we think.