Bilingual Blonde

When people talk about bilingual education, they’re almost never talking about me. They’re almost always referring to Hispanic kids from Mexico or Central America, or Asian kids from Cambodia or Vietnam. I was just a güera blondie born in the frozen Northeast, transplanted to the warm West at age 7.

But early in my life, I too had to master a foreign tongue, with schoolmates who didn’t speak my language, with teachers who could not talk to me in my mother tongue.

Here’s how this immigration in reverse happened: When I was five, my family moved from frozen Buffalo to hot El Paso, Texas, where my dad was to serve out his ROTC commitment as a lieutenant working an office job at Fort Bliss. We moved to a concrete block house across the street from the firing range, where red ants were a constant hazard underfoot and tumbleweeds lazed across our front lawn.

My mom was a teacher, and we were Montessori kids from day one. In Buffalo, I’d attended the Nardin Academy with my mostly Polish and Irish classmates. I played with the classic Montessori pink block tower, learned to count with golden beads, and learned about numbers and weights with sandpaper and blocks of wood. All in heavily accented Buffalo English, of course.

Naturally, when we moved to El Paso, my mom wanted us to keep up our Montessori chops. The thing was, the only Montessori school was across la frontera in Juarez.

So off we went. Without any big explanations or psychological counseling, my sister Rachel and I were plunged into español at Casa Montessori in Ciudad Juarez, where I was known as Lorena and she as Raquel.

We drove across the Rio Grande every school morning, and came back across every day, passing the border guards with no problem at all. Our only import was our rapidly growing stock of Spanish words and perfect accents. No one ever searched our car on the way back, or demanded papers or passports. We were all clearly gueros americanos, inocente.

I liked my school. I liked my blue cotton bata, or robe, with the white collar and my name sewn on it. I loved changing into my chancletas (my slippers) every day – they were blue velvet with blue roses on the toes. I was always shy and a little apprehensive of my teachers, who didn’t impose too much structure on our days in true Montessori fashion, but allowed me to roam and join in whatever activities I liked. My fellow students were mostly upper-class Mexicans, with a few other American kids thrown in.

In my memory, I had no trouble at all communicating with them or with any of my classmates. As a matter of fact, I don’t exactly remember speaking Spanish, or English – it seemed I had just one really big language floating around in my head, with plenty of words to choose from depending on the situation I found myself in and the people I found myself with.

Within six months I was fluent. I was the only person in my family who could speak to the ladies in Juarez shops, or ask for directions.

So, what’s the big deal about bilingual education? Can’t preschoolers, kindergartners and primary grade school students just dive right in like I did?

Well, some can, of course, especially the preschoolers and kindergartners.

But there was one huge, obvious difference between me and those kids from Mexico who come to el norte. They don’t get to go back and forth every day, to come home to the place where everybody speaks their language. It makes a big difference to know that you’re a language tourist rather than a language expatriate. Learning Spanish wasn’t essential to our future success. It added to our possibilities in life, but not learning it didn’t alter our future career choices.

At that age, like I said, I neither noticed nor cared. To my sponge-like brain, Spanish was just more words to learn. I could go home to my parents and speak English the rest of the day if I wanted to.

I consider myself lucky. Spanish was imported into my brain at such a young age that I’ve carried it always with me. The language was put away for a long time. But then I unpacked those beautiful words when I got to high school Spanish, and they unfolded without a wrinkle. Mr de Leon, our very correct teacher, complemented me on my perfect accent.

When I went to Italy, I was able to learn that language very quickly. When I fell in love with Brazil, I started speaking a little Portuguese. And finally, when I started traveling to Cuba, I had a big head start on deciphering the impossible Cuban Spanish accent, which some liken to talking with a sweet potato in your mouth. After a semester of night-school Spanish, I was able to fend for myself and after all these years I’m proud to say that I can hold a conversation in really, really bad Cuban street Spanish.

Now I watch my daughter, who’s half Cuban. Her father always spoke to her in Spanish. I sometimes did (but there’s a reason they call it your mother tongue – I always felt better crooning to her in English). Her sweet, loving El Salvadorean nanny Sylvia spoke to her in Spanish. And so she grew up understanding every word in English and in Spanish. She always answered in English, but showed that she had perfectly understood what had been said to her, much to the amusement of whatever adults happened to be talking to her.

And now she’s having success in her elementary school Spanish classes. The turning point for her was the first summer she went to Cuba. To play with her cousins, she had to speak Spanish. So, she did. As simple as that. And she speaks the truest callejero Spanish you’ve ever heard. She’s got a sweet potato in her mouth and sounds like an old rumbero.

The circle is complete. And the mysteries of language continue in our family.

Culture Clash

I almost titled this blog "Rich Girl in the Hood", since it's really about class, not race. But "rich girl" just didn't have the same ring that "white girl" did. And since I only rank as the world's 31,849,353 richest person, it wouldn't really be true. Actually, I'm richer than 99.47% of all human beings on earth. Go to www.globalrichlist.com if you want to see where you stand.

Even though I speak fluent Spanish and know how to dance salsa, I am undeniably a white girl. For nearly six years I've been living in a mixed, "transitional" neighborhood in Oakland, CA. Oakland is many things, from upper-crust Montclair and Rockridge to downscale Fruitvale and East and West Oakland.

But my hood really is the hood. The barrio. It's a place where people know how to celebrate the Fourth of July. Why bother with those wimpy sparklers and whistling Petes when you can so easily buy a trunkload of professional-grade aerial fireworks and shoot them off in the middle of your street for all to enjoy? If you got to the black-market fireworks sale too late, just pull out your gun and shoot it in the air!

Don't get me wrong. I like most of my neighbors. They're out and about on their porches. Their kids ride bikes (not a helmet in sight, more about that later) and play baseball in the street. They've lent me tools and taken care of my daughter and inquired about my boyfriend. They've openly wondered how it can be that just two people (me and my 8-year-old daughter) live in a three-bedroom, one-bath house.

My block's a microcosm of the hood, with African Americans and Latinos and Asians and Caucasians and stray cats and dogs and, I think, one duck, all living together in noisy harmony, most of the time.

Mi barrio is a place that has driven progressive, recycling, non-littering, yogic, compassionate, sugar-free me crazy. It's made me wonder whether or not true diversity is possible. And it's confirmed my belief and strengthened my understanding that on a daily basis, I am lavished with extravagant privileges just because I was born with fish-belly-white skin.

If you're reading this and you're not white, you know exactly what I mean. If you are Caucasian, you should go here to unpack your invisible knapsack of white privilege. Please pay close attention to the "Daily effects of white privilege." And tell me what you think.