My father comes from an Irish mother from the Bronx and a Puerto Rican father who spoke "broken" English, as my dad describes it. My mother comes from a mother who is Puerto Rican and started her life in Brooklyn as a young girl. My mom's father, my grandpa, is Puerto Rican and has lived in Brooklyn his entire life. Puerto Rican seems to be the outweighing factor in terms of my heritage and where I come from.
I am so interested and in love with both sides of my family's cultures and ethnicities. At grandma and grandpa's house, salsa music flows through the apartment, trying to overplay the loud voices that echo outside. We eat too much food, but it is just right. Arroz con gandules, pernil, pasteles, flan, and the list goes on. My almost 91 years young great-grandmother, wela, still insists on making pasteles herself from scratch. She knows the basic "are you hungry?" and such in English terms. That is it. This is the one part that kills me.
I grew up speaking and being spoken to in English. I cannot recall anyone besides my wela speaking to me in Spanish. Maybe I was able to communicate with her back then, who knows? I constantly mess with my mom, particularly about not making my grandparents speak to me in Spanish. It bothers me so much that my wela sits there and tries to have meaningful conversations with me and all I can do is stare at my grandma for help. How does she feel? She's the toughest woman I know, but it must suck to not understand me and vice versa.
I am basically spilling my feelings about this but it digs a passion in me to learn.
Next semester, I am taking Spanish 101 to learn. Yes, being bilingual is great, but my main reason is to communicate with that woman. I will more than likely get the question, "Is there a reason you did not grow up speaking Spanish?" No. There is not and I am going to work to be taught and learn. When I went to Puerto Rico for my 16th birthday, I was surrounded by MY amazing culture and people, but felt that something was missing – communication. Some Puerto Ricans speak English but I feel that if I was able to speak with the ones that do not, I would have been deeper connected with the island.
I love my Irish side, and I greatly appreciate the fact that I come from two completely different backgrounds. The Spanish language is something that is always seen as a problem since I am Hispanic. 90% of my friends' parents do not speak English, which means that my friends need to translate. It is ridiculous. I owe it to myself to stop that from occurring. People think because I am Irish, I am a "white girl" that never bothered to learn Spanish. Kiss my ass, thank you. I am a young woman who is proud to be Puerto Rican and Irish from New York City. That is a lot of diversity in one sentence. My wish for now is to be able to fully relate to a culture that I am constantly immersed in.
