TO THE EDITOR:
“Soy Americana.”
Why is it questioned?
Four months separate me from you.
Four months keep me from running for president.
Four months keep me from being a “real” American.
Four months after I was born, my family moved to the United States.
My parents’ leap of faith irreversibly changed my world, something that I am forever grateful for.
While I may not have blonde hair or blue eyes, I am an American.
Yet the media and growing anti-immigrant movement want me to apologize for those four months and everything that it symbolizes.
In the first grade, my teacher told my parents they were not allowed to speak to me in Spanish at home.
She claimed that it was hurting my English and preventing me from succeeding, despite the fact that I was one of the best at reading and English.
My standardized test scores were almost perfect. So my parents told her no and left.
This is one of my earliest memories of being shamed for knowing Spanish, but it certainly wasn’t my last.
Ask anyone who is a multilingual immigrant — being treated like the class parrot, receiving backhanded comments and being the odd one out is common.
In these days plagued by the Kardashians and Donald Trump, selective appropriation and mass xenophobia affect anyone considered “other.”http://www.eonline.com/shows/kardashians //
Daily microaggressions and outright hatred pressure many to abandon cultural and linguistic connections to family, while the mainstream trivializes personal experiences and cultural practices.
The dualism of being both an attraction to be ogled at and an oddity to shame is well known by kids who grow up bilingual.
Multilingualism is constructive for everyone, but immigrants are disproportionately targeted for the “un-Americaness” of knowing more than one language.
Immigrants are discouraged from speaking their native language in favor of becoming monolingual in English.
Despite the commonly accepted notion that multilingualism is beneficial, teachers and other professionals tend to push only English onto recent immigrants.
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However, multilingualism is one of the trendiest ways to raise your child — if you are wealthy and a non-immigrant.
Once again, mainstream culture appropriates the characteristics of minorities while simultaneously shaming those minorities.
Researchers working with Latino students from immigrant families found that the students worked hard to become proficient in English, often abandoning Spanish along the way.
To fix the issue, researchers suggest more acceptance of bilingualism, teachers being culturally educated and a better connection between home and school.Worthy, J., & Rodríguez-Galindo, A. (2006). “Mi Hija Vale Dos Personas”: Latino Immigrant Parents’ Perspectives About Their Children’s Bilingualism. Bilingual Research Journal, 30(2), 579–601. http://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2006.10162891
The popularity of bilingual schools increases, yet immigrant access to those schools remains stagnant.Adamy, J. (2016, April 1). Dual-Language Classes for Kids Grow in Popularity. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/dual-language-classes-for-kids-grow-in-popularity-1459535318
America’s 1 percent manufactures multilingualism, while Americans born with it are shamed into submission.
In an evermore hostile world, we as a nation must unite against hate.
By putting in the effort of being more tolerant and patient with multilingual immigrants, we can grow into a more harmonious and successful people.
Gaby Romero
Raleighhow they signed it
