Oi, tudo bom. Eu não falo Português. Você fala ingles?
On my way to the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, I found myself repeating those three sentences in the airport or on my flight from São Paulo to Campo Grande. I would repeatedly say “Hi, I don’t speak Portuguese. Do you speak English?” hoping that someone would help me navigate through the airport. Sometimes, a Brazilian would approach me and try to speak to me, but I would suddenly feel panicked and embarrassed and quickly say, “Eu não falo Português” (I don’t speak Portuguese). They would usually nod their heads, smile and say something that I didn’t understand.
By the end of my month-long trip, I felt ashamed of myself. Why didn’t I at least TRY to understand what they were saying to me? Why didn’t I study more Portuguese before I left? I could have used a translator on my phone for help, or even tried to use the limited vocabulary I knew at the time. Instead, as soon as I realized that they didn’t speak English, I gave up. It was pathetic.
Thankfully, throughout my trip I learned a little more Portuguese. I became comfortable with my boyfriend’s family and tried my best to communicate using my limited knowledge of Portuguese. I essentially survived because of my boyfriend, who is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and English. He was able to translate for me and guide me through any social interactions that I struggled with. For the first time in my life, I was a foreigner.
During my stay in Brazil, I learned that almost all cities in Brazil have at least one private English school. English was an important language to learn, especially in business and agriculture. I also learned that almost all Brazilians valued the importance of a second language, especially English.
Why wasn’t this a value in the United States? I went to a high school that offered one foreign language: Spanish. I took Spanish all four years purely for the extra gold star on my college application. I didn’t take Spanish to learn about Hispanic culture or even because I wanted to be fluent in another language. I had no idea the value and enrichment that comes from really immersing yourself in another culture and language. To me, it was a required class that I didn’t need in the future. Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In college, I ended my studies in Spanish and quickly lost many of the skills from the last four years. When I lived in the international dorms, I met many international students and was inspired and impressed by their ability to speak English fluently. I added TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) to my degree, and immediately regretted that I didn’t continue my study of a foreign language.
Later, during my spring 2016 semester, the foreign languages department had major budget cuts at UW River Falls, a school that states in their core values, “We engage with ideas, people, cultures, and places beyond our campus to enrich learning and understanding.” It was at this point in my education that I began to question why learning a second language had become a painful duty to get accepted into a good college, rather than an enriching experience to understanding the world we live in. Why don't we emphasize the importance of a second language? Why didn’t we begin learning a foreign language when we were in elementary school? People around the world are expected and encouraged to become fluent in English; why don’t we follow suit?
Brazil made me realize that generally visitors and immigrants face a double standard in the United States. If you speak another language and visit the United States, you are judged for not speaking English. There have been several times that I've heard a comment like, “If they want to live here, they need to at least learn English.” To an extent, this is true: living in the United States would be much harder if you didn't speak English.
However, what we forget to take into account is the time, commitment and difficulty of learning a second language, and the relief and comfort that comes from speaking your first language in a foreign country. Take a second and imagine if you moved to Germany or Italy and no one would allow you to speak English with your family. It would be lonely and incredibly frustrating.
Yet, as Americans, we generally don't bother to learn a second language or even some simple vocabulary when we travel. We just expect that someone will speak English wherever we are going. Just because English is a privileged language doesn't mean we can't work to connect with others who speak a different language.
To emphasize this point further, in Brazil, I wasn’t able to express myself to anyone besides my boyfriend. I couldn’t fully formulate my thoughts, tell anyone how I felt or even order my own food. If I hadn’t had someone who could speak English with me, I would have been completely lost. In fact, at one point on my trip, I felt so overwhelmed with the different language and my inability to communicate that I broke down and cried. That was when my boyfriend said something to me I would never forget: “Now you know how I feel.”
He was right. He was absolutely and totally right. People that visit the United States and don’t speak English fluently face this struggle every single day. The embarrassment, panic and nervousness I felt when someone approached me speaking Portuguese was what immigrants feel every time someone speaks to them in English.
But there was one major difference between my experience and an immigrant in the United States: In Brazil, I was treated with nothing but courtesy and kindness. I was never treated badly or differently because I was American. In fact, I was treated like another Brazilian. People would want to learn English words, and in turn, I would try to learn more Portuguese. I was never chastised for speaking English when I needed to, or for going out and eating pizza instead of rice and beans.
It wasn’t until I went to Brazil that I fully realized how important a second language is to understanding people and different cultures. The way people speak is a reflection of the way they see the world. It’s a lens into another culture and perspective.
As I continue to travel the world, I hope to view others not as foreigners, but as fellow travelers seeking a better understanding of one another.
