Cover Page

Creating a piece of writing that explains the struggles of coming from an immigrant household showed the vulnerability that many of the individuals in our classroom had to go through. One of the most insightful lessons I have learned throughout this process was that most of us assimilated or mimicked the language or form of speech due to the surrounding we are involved in. In addition, the form of how we speak is something we all should be proud of, there is no “incorrect” way to speak a specific language. Individualism is what allows for many different dialects to exist, and it should be appreciated not frown upon. In my case, the intended audience that I was targeting were immigrant households and the struggles of being the first generation being born in the United States.

The expectation that everyone has because you are the one that is supposed to know everything in the English language. For this reason, I added some Spanish phrases in writing but translated them for the reader to get a better grasp of what they are reading. One concept that impacted my learning of language is the expectations that were put upon me since I was young child. What I mean by this is that when asked something like translating or speaking for a family member in English, you were supposed to know what to do or say no matter what. If you didn’t know then they would say, “para que te mando a la escuela”, “what do I send to school for”, this phrase meaning that you aren’t learning or that your useless. That is what made me want to learn and improve myself every day in order to stop hearing that phrase. It also gave me a sense of accomplishment when I knew what to do or so in certain situation. One of the most interesting ways to get your point across to the audience is through the help of technology. In our project we had to use multiple sources of technology. This could be PowerPoint slides, audio messages, pictures, websites, videos, music, and so much more.

For one of the presentations in the classroom, there was a classmate that used PowerPoint that resonated with me. He used his form of comedy to make the issue he was talking about light but at the same time talking about something serious. It was an enjoyable experience for the reader or audience when he was presenting and easy to follow what was trying to portray. In my case, I used three multimedia components, one being a video I created explaining the situation I grew up in when I was a young child, the second being a picture of a neighborhood that later in my life I moved too and created my childhood friends, and the third being a website of how my Ecuadorian background and how there would be festival representing my culture. With the use of these powerful tools, I was able to portray the idea of my childhood and the environment I grew up within so that the audience can understand my perspective. Other example of the use of multimedia content was the distribution of physical copies of a book or item that enhanced the story of the writer or presenter. Many of the classmates used books or stick figures to talk about the situation they grew up within. With this in mind, I want the reader to have an open mind of how people express themselves and their story. 

Internal Struggles

Growing up I was exposed to a lot of intercultural languages and mannerisms when talking to different types of groups. Starting out living in Jamacia Queens, I would go to school and talk very laid back and relaxed like nothing bothered me. Walking to the F train at Sutphin Blvd, where all the homeless people would go to sleep under the train and people casually smoking early in the day. How they would speak in a slur, and I would imitate their mannerisms. Speaking with your chest puffed up or keeping direct eye contact all the time were small details I picked up. “Yo wasgood brodie”, I said, “Yerrrr”, my friend would say back. A way of communicating that is very simplistic but portrayed a lot of meaning behind it. Even when we were saying goodbye for the night, “ight bro stay up”, I would say to my friends. It a very simple phrase but it meant to stay safe or to wish them good luck don’t be discouraged in anyway. You could also take it in a literal manner and mean stay alive instead of being 6 feet deep. 

Later in my childhood I moved to 90 street Elmhurst Avenue, where I grew up with Ecuadorian parents, so it was obligatory to know some sort of Spanish, this became my native language. During this time fame was when I started to learn English and forgetting my native language. Throughout the years, learning English and being in mostly environments that people spoke English, my Spanish was fading away. To further elaborate, I used to talk very fluent Spanish as a young child but when confronted with an audience that was mostly English speaking, it was hard to practice my own native language outside of my household. I remember my friends and I would challenge each other to pronounce words in Spanish that were difficult for us. We did this to test each other’s Spanish and not forget our native languages. There was one word that I would always pronounce wrong, and it was “periódico”. This word meant newspaper, but my tongue couldn’t pronounce it correctly, I would always get angry because I would lose the challenge due to this word. In a grand scheme of things, this was such a simple word, yet I couldn’t get myself to say it. That is day I went home and tried to say it correctly and inform myself on my own native language. I also used to struggle on how to write in Spanish and during that time frame that I was learning how to pronounce words, I decided to learn how to write them as well. It had a fundamental change on the way I spoke Spanish and wrote it as well.

This exercise or challenge that we had has a collective friend group help me out in the long run. It benefited all the people that participated because it helps us develop a sense of cultural appreciation. I was able to communicate with my people and when I mean “people”, I mean Spanish speaking individuals. Becoming bilingual could be the most beneficial tool that I had as a Spanish speaker. My livelihood was so much different from the other kids that were in my community or went to school. I was the family’s “translator”, what I mean is that literally I was the person that everyone depended on to either learn English or to speak for them. Reminiscing on the times my family would ask me to speak for them on the phone when they were making a doctor appointment, “Hey, how may I help you” were the words I would always here whenever I had to intervene. “Guan mome” is what my parents said when they passed the phone to me, I used to be ashamed of the way my parents would speak English.  It would always be the case that the person would not take them serious because of this border of language. Getting infuriated in the way that they would treat my parents, I would always talk to the person on the other side of the line. “Excuse me, can you be more polite”, is what I said and continue with, “Can I make an appointment for Thursday”. They would reply with an apologetic tone, “I apologize for any inconvenience, I am available at 2:30 pm on Thursday”, at that moment I would realize that there is significant way in the way to speak English in this country. From there on, I would always tell my mother whenever she needs my help to call me or to ask me. After that interaction, I realized that I shouldn’t be ashamed about how she spoke because it meant that I viewed her how they viewed them. I would encourage my mother to learn the English language as how I was learning the Spanish language. I embraced the accent that she had and talked to her the same manner in order for her to feel more comfortable talking English. “Mami, dice que puede este Jueves”, I talked to her saying that “mom, they said they could on Thursday”, she replies saying “gracias mijo”, “thank you son”.  

Ecuadorian NYC