Situaciones Incómodas
Painting by: Wendy J. Rodriguez
09/14/13
ⁱYo soy Colombo-Americana! No soy del país de Colombia pero soy hija de padres Colombianos. Fui la primera…of my family to be born…en los Estados Unidos de América. ⁱY no, no somos parte del cartel de drogas!
The main thing I have always been told to take from my Hispanic heritage was the Spanish language. It’s been both a blessing and a pain. It has helped me significantly throughout my life, but it has also placed me in some uncomfortable situations.
Let me backtrack for a moment to better establish my family. My parents were both immigrants to the United States and had to learn English from the streets. It was very hard for them to adapt to a completely different environment, nonetheless a new language. Don’t get me wrong they were previously exposed to English back in Colombia, but the grammatical aspect of English is completely different from the English used day to day. Their English might not have been the best, but they adapted to the language barrier. I even think that they began to feel even more comfortable after having children who could help them along the way with the day to day translations.
Growing up, I was always exposed to Spanish. It was a household priority. My parents were determined not to let their daughters become the typical children of Hispanic parents who forget about their heritage and language. My dad had me read Latin-American newspapers, signs, and anything he thought was imperative for me to learn Spanish. Along the way, I had many mispronunciation spells it was inevitable not to laugh. For instance, I was very thirsty and was joking about how ‘dihitria’ I was. The funny part is that this is definitely not the way of saying or spelling dehydrated. This is a clear example of making English words play off as Spanish which is not uncommon amongst bilingual speakers. There isn’t a hot day that escapes the lovely conversation about the time I mispronounced ‘deshidratada’.
Many of my responsibilities as a developing translator (an endearing term my mom uses) were to help translate and fill out any of my family’s school and/or medical documents. These were such tedious tasks, because I thought they were considered ‘grown up’ jobs. I didn’t think it was fair that my parents were making me fill them out instead of letting me watch cartoons. Along the way, I learned where to write ‘la fecha’, ‘día de nacimiento’, and where to sign. These were skills I later on took into my hospital volunteer job during high school. My first position at the hospital was as a birth care center volunteer. I answered phones, filled out paper work, made copies, and sent faxes. There were also some tasks that required me to build personal relationships with patients especially those who had a language barrier of their own. If I couldn’t translate for them I would find someone who could. Several times I was able to assist them to the best of my abilities and I even remembered a few of those special people I helped. A woman who impacted me was in labor and prolonged filling out her paperwork, because she had no one to help her translate it. She was crying so I took the pen from her hand and helped her fill every bit of her documents. I may have not relieved the pain of child birth but I made it so she didn’t have to worry about anything other than herself and her baby.
As brilliant as it is to say I am bilingual, it has come with a price. The biggest recurrence of this price was being placed in adult discussions. I could not comprehend half of the adult arguments that I translated; many of them consisted of taxes, property line boundaries, interest rates and the list goes on. I never let my parents know how much it hurt to be placed in the middle of arguments because I understood that if I didn’t for them translate then they could be taken advantage of for their language barrier. I have never liked confrontations or being dislike by someone. The worst part is being disliked by the translation of another person’s words in a confrontation. I always tried to lower the tension in a discussion by changing the tone but I would later get yelled at for it. These events made me realize that a lot of emotion is lost in translation and can change the significance of the words said.
Eventually, I could speak Spanish fluently without hesitation and to anyone that was willing to listen to me. I know that, long-term, the good overcame the bad, but could there have been other ways to learn Spanish that didn’t include the awkward adult situations I was placed in? All I know for sure is that my Colombian parents’ dedication and persistence allowed me to embrace my heritage and learn a new language!
Translations:
Situaciones incómodas-uncomfortable situations
I am Colombian-American! I am not from Colombia but I am the daugther of Colombian parents. I am the first generation family member to be born in the United States from a long line of Colombian heritage. And no we are not a part of a drug cartel!
La fecha- date
Dia de nacimiento- date of birth
ⁱYo soy Colombo-Americana! No soy del país de Colombia pero soy hija de padres Colombianos. Fui la primera…of my family to be born…en los Estados Unidos de América. ⁱY no, no somos parte del cartel de drogas!
The main thing I have always been told to take from my Hispanic heritage was the Spanish language. It’s been both a blessing and a pain. It has helped me significantly throughout my life, but it has also placed me in some uncomfortable situations.
Let me backtrack for a moment to better establish my family. My parents were both immigrants to the United States and had to learn English from the streets. It was very hard for them to adapt to a completely different environment, nonetheless a new language. Don’t get me wrong they were previously exposed to English back in Colombia, but the grammatical aspect of English is completely different from the English used day to day. Their English might not have been the best, but they adapted to the language barrier. I even think that they began to feel even more comfortable after having children who could help them along the way with the day to day translations.
Growing up, I was always exposed to Spanish. It was a household priority. My parents were determined not to let their daughters become the typical children of Hispanic parents who forget about their heritage and language. My dad had me read Latin-American newspapers, signs, and anything he thought was imperative for me to learn Spanish. Along the way, I had many mispronunciation spells it was inevitable not to laugh. For instance, I was very thirsty and was joking about how ‘dihitria’ I was. The funny part is that this is definitely not the way of saying or spelling dehydrated. This is a clear example of making English words play off as Spanish which is not uncommon amongst bilingual speakers. There isn’t a hot day that escapes the lovely conversation about the time I mispronounced ‘deshidratada’.
Many of my responsibilities as a developing translator (an endearing term my mom uses) were to help translate and fill out any of my family’s school and/or medical documents. These were such tedious tasks, because I thought they were considered ‘grown up’ jobs. I didn’t think it was fair that my parents were making me fill them out instead of letting me watch cartoons. Along the way, I learned where to write ‘la fecha’, ‘día de nacimiento’, and where to sign. These were skills I later on took into my hospital volunteer job during high school. My first position at the hospital was as a birth care center volunteer. I answered phones, filled out paper work, made copies, and sent faxes. There were also some tasks that required me to build personal relationships with patients especially those who had a language barrier of their own. If I couldn’t translate for them I would find someone who could. Several times I was able to assist them to the best of my abilities and I even remembered a few of those special people I helped. A woman who impacted me was in labor and prolonged filling out her paperwork, because she had no one to help her translate it. She was crying so I took the pen from her hand and helped her fill every bit of her documents. I may have not relieved the pain of child birth but I made it so she didn’t have to worry about anything other than herself and her baby.
As brilliant as it is to say I am bilingual, it has come with a price. The biggest recurrence of this price was being placed in adult discussions. I could not comprehend half of the adult arguments that I translated; many of them consisted of taxes, property line boundaries, interest rates and the list goes on. I never let my parents know how much it hurt to be placed in the middle of arguments because I understood that if I didn’t for them translate then they could be taken advantage of for their language barrier. I have never liked confrontations or being dislike by someone. The worst part is being disliked by the translation of another person’s words in a confrontation. I always tried to lower the tension in a discussion by changing the tone but I would later get yelled at for it. These events made me realize that a lot of emotion is lost in translation and can change the significance of the words said.
Eventually, I could speak Spanish fluently without hesitation and to anyone that was willing to listen to me. I know that, long-term, the good overcame the bad, but could there have been other ways to learn Spanish that didn’t include the awkward adult situations I was placed in? All I know for sure is that my Colombian parents’ dedication and persistence allowed me to embrace my heritage and learn a new language!
Translations:
Situaciones incómodas-uncomfortable situations
I am Colombian-American! I am not from Colombia but I am the daugther of Colombian parents. I am the first generation family member to be born in the United States from a long line of Colombian heritage. And no we are not a part of a drug cartel!
La fecha- date
Dia de nacimiento- date of birth
Situaciones Incómodas by Wendy J. Rodriguez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at rodriguezwendy.weebly.com.
