The Double Standards of Biliteracy

“¿De dondé eres?” “Mi madre es puertorriqueña y mi padre es judío.”  “¿Hablas español?” “Un poquito.”

Art by Yelizaveta Rogulina

I did not become fluent in Spanish until I was 17 years old. The conversation in Spanish above was essentially all I knew for years. I grew up in suburban New Jersey in an upper middle class town, 45 minutes from Manhattan by train. I worked hard to learn conversational Spanish by my senior year of high school, but I often think about the reasons I never learned the language as a child.  

Looking back, I realize that perhaps I didn’t necessarily “need” to learn Spanish; it was a valuable skill that could be “good for a resume” as one relative from my father’s side put it, but growing up speaking it would have made things more difficult for me. Perhaps my parents decided it would protect me, allowing me to fit in better with my peers and adjust to the American public school system. Maybe it would have been too confusing for the other side of my family to understand us in a completely different language than their own. People tend to fear the unfamiliar.

I have heard stories of English as a second language students not receiving proper support and falling behind in school. Why is it that when someone learns English secondarily it is viewed as compulsory because their first language is “less than,” while English speakers who learn multiple languages are viewed as impressive?

I sat down with Emerson journalism student Tomás Gonzalez ‘22 who was born in Venezuela but grew up in Costa Rica. Gonzalez learned English around the same time as he learned Spanish, yet he still experiences microaggressions from time to time. “I wouldn’t say I’ve felt discriminated [against], but more discouraged,” says Gonzalez. “It’s gotten to a point that people expect me to know the language perfectly, and although I am fortunate to know English very well, there are still parts that I struggle with.”

“There’s a common view of immigration here in the United States,” Gonzalez continued. “Being bilingual is taken in a different context. When you see someone of the higher class who speaks seven languages, it’s treated like an incredible achievement. If it’s an immigrant, it might be frowned upon. But nobody owns a language. In reality, it’s impressive if you speak multiple languages either way, whether you’re an immigrant or not.”

Perhaps it really is, unfortunately, all about appearances. In a society where immigration—especially from Latin American countries—is a heated topic, the massive difference in the way we treat biliteracy is often forgotten.

Journalism major Sabine Waldeck ‘22, who was born in Australia to an Australian mother and a Dutch father, explained how lucky she felt in the immigration process. “I am technically a first generation immigrant. I was born in Australia. That’s an English speaking country, so I never had to go through the process of learning a new language. I moved here when I was young, so I lost my accent very quickly. No one questions whether or not I’m American, even though I only became a citizen two years ago.”

Even though she had the benefit of English on her side, Waldeck regrets not learning Dutch growing up. “My dad always felt this stigma. He never taught us Dutch. He thought there was no point in us learning it—he did not even deem his own first language as impressive.” 

The idea of assimilation in relation to whiteness and speaking English is inherently problematic. 

Speaking two languages can only expand one’s horizons and levels of communication and English as a second language should not be considered unworthy of praise.

Cindy Rodriguez, a journalist in residence at Emerson College, once wrote a column on the languages spoken in the U.S. for The Denver Post. “Language shouldn’t be a barrier in the way of people understanding each other. Speaking more languages would help us eliminate these cultural biases,” saus Rodriguez. “We are vastly monolinguistic. Fifteen years ago, when I wrote a column on this back in Denver, I used stats from the census bureau to show how monolinguistic we are. People have a hard time understanding how hard it is to learn another language.”

We live in an incredibly divisive time. It is imperative that we educate ourselves on the beauty of other cultures, and that we are able to have open communication in other languages. Biliteracy is a bridge to people and places we may not have otherwise encountered and it should be treated as the fantastic skill that it is, regardless of whether or not English was learned first.