Society Sabotaged My Spanish

Ever since I can remember, I’ve spoken Spanish with my family. Both of my parents are immigrants from the Dominican Republic, and my maternal grandmother migrated to the United States just in time to help raise me. Yet, after being set free into the world—mine being white suburbia—the language suddenly felt like something beyond me. 

As I grew up in the Florida suburbs, my parents struggled between wanting my brother and I to actively speak their native language or speak what we were learning in school. Eventually, they settled on speaking Spanish in the household to keep us in touch with our heritage and our abuela. However, outside of the house, my norm slowly shifted to strictly English, as I got more comfortable in the language I used most often and more insecure about speaking Spanish. 

Looking back, there was a moment that this shift could be attributed to. In first grade, I was at a playdate with the rest of my flag football cheerleading squad, and the host announced that we would be playing princesses. As I excitedly arose, she looked at me, the only person of color and Spanish speaker in the room, and demanded that I “had to be the maid.” I deeply internalized that moment for most of my childhood, initiating my anxiety-stricken need to hide part of my identity. Before I knew it, I had abandoned my roots outside of my doorstep, while my curl pattern and Spanish fluency paid the price of my assimilation in a primarily white town. 

By the time I started high school, I began to surround myself with a more diverse group of friends that had gone through similar experiences and supported me in my journey of embracing my full identity. I stopped straightening my hair and actually started involving my friends in Dominican culture, from sharing my abuela’s cooking, to dancing and bachata and dembow. However, my anxiety regarding speaking Spanish remained. 

Art by Reg Czukoski

At my school, there was a close-knit community of Hispanics that spoke Spanish no matter where they were. Many of them were born in their family’s native country or came from areas with a large Hispanic population. Once again, I felt as if I was on the outside looking in. These kids were so in touch with their culture, while I spent most of my life actively fighting against mine. I envied that, although I lived in the same white-dominated city as them, they could be themselves and speak their domestic language so effortlessly, embracing every side of them without a second thought. Meanwhile, I was so conscious of this internal switch dividing Spanish at home and English anywhere else.

For me, that distinction was everything. When you misspeak or say the wrong word in front of family, they usually let out a light chuckle and move on without correction. In the real world, when you are speaking Spanish, it is all out there for others to judge. For instance, the infamous “Yo No Sabo” kid phenomenon. This nickname references the common improper conjugation of the verb, “saber,” and went viral shaming people of Hispanic/Latinx descent that don’t know or barely speak Spanish. The deep-rooted fear of not fitting in my own community and once again being branded as an outsider scared me. It was as if my second nature had been weaponized against me. The thought of interjecting in public conversation in Spanish riddled me with anxiety and made me hyper-aware of every syllable spoken. I hated the sound of my own voice; my American accent gave my years of mispractice away. 

I would look to apps like Duolingo or set extra time to engage in conversations with my abuela and try to force myself to perfect my craft, but what I realized was that I knew the verbiage, the grammar, and what words meant. I simply had lost my connection to the language, triggering my apprehension and lack of confidence in my abilities. I put so much pressure on myself because I constantly felt like I had to prove myself when speaking Spanish that I would overcompensate and mess up even more. It was a matter of performance anxiety, not knowledge deficiency. 

Since English had been so ingrained within me and was a language everyone around me spoke 24/7, I never had to consciously think about how I sounded when I spoke. But in Spanish, since I was so accustomed to being singled out anyways, I hyper fixated on my delivery and acted as my own biggest critic before I could even get the words out. 

This realization served as both a shock and a sigh of relief. While I was concerned about losing touch with the beautiful culture I grew to love and embrace for myself, it proved to be simply a roadblock of my own doing, a mental barricade aimed to protect me from any more harsh judgements or microaggressions. Now, it is up to me to undo the years of conditioning that convinced me to live as two separate people. Every time I call my parents, I try to speak to them strictly in Spanish, as well as the rest of my relatives, regardless of whether or not they speak English. Bachata, among Spanish trap and salsa, often plagues my speakers while I attempt to emulate the artist’s pronunciation. I try to force myself out of my comfort zone, speaking Spanish in public to shed that irrational fear of being abashed. 

Although I won’t just wake up one day speaking perfect Spanish, pushing myself closer to that goal is the least I can do for a language that has given me so much. From giving me access to understand the most rhapsodic music to acting as a medium for me to speak with my abuela, who I consider one of my best friends, Spanish has served such a principal role in my life, even when I left it in the dust.