Julia McGonigal, Drew Gasparini

Blog 1

In the suburban neighborhood I grew up in, I was mainly exposed to Spanish and Hispanic culture. Both of my parents worked growing up, and because of this I spent an abundance of time with my nanny, Carmen, who hailed from Tijuana, Mexico. I can remember speaking to Carmen in Spanish in early elementary school. For me, Spanish and English came hand in hand, and both resonated as one language in my developing brain. When my Nanny came to pick me up from school the conversation went a little something like this:

Carmen: ¡Hola Chica! ¿Còmo estuvo tu dìa?

Julia: Bien, gracias, extraño mi madre.

Carmen: Tu mamá vendrá por ti a las tres de la tarde.

Even though I understood the words coming from Carmen’s mouth, I didn’t quite understand why she was saying them to me. Why was this woman who I spent so much time with speaking to me in a language different than my own mother or father? For a while during my childhood I was completely fluent in Spanish. Unfortunately, I lost much of this skill during my middle school years. Looking back, I try not to think of it as a burden but I do think that Carmen and the Spanish language left its mark on me. I always felt like I was constantly flipping a light switch on and off between Spanish and English. Carmen and my parents. Mexico and America. I felt connected to her through Spanish because this was the only language I could really communicate my emotions and ideas to her in, and hers to me.

I was raised in a big Italian family where everyone was extremely close and our culture was always present.  At the forefront were my grandparents and great grandparents speaking Italian amongst themselves while the rest of us went about the house in chaos.  I spent a lot of time sitting with my older relatives, just listening to them and slowly developing an understanding of their foreign, mysterious words.  I was able to learn some of the language through our family gatherings, but unfortunately my knowledge of Italian never spread beyond that. Later on in middle school and high school I took Spanish. Now I am now able to understand most of the Spanish I hear on a daily basis, but am less able to respond.  Working at McDonald’s, it was definitely a burden to not be able to comfortably communicate with my coworkers when they didn’t speak English, instead using makeshift Spanish to get my point across.