Growing up in a diverse and metropolitan city, I could say that San Francisco has exposed me to so much growing up in a way that nobody could understand. Although, it was living in the Mission District my whole life that shaped me to be the way I am today. The Mission is a heavy populated Latino neighborhood filled with different Latino cultures that really shows the history of the city, for it is the oldest established neighborhood in the little 7 mile by 7 mile area. I lived at home with my family, half being Filipino and the other half of European descent. My grandmother would always try speaking to me in Tagalog so that I could pick it up, but unfortunately that didn’t work for me. Starting pre school at a very young age, my parents put me in a Spanish immersion school. Little did I know this would change my life forever and how I look at things from a global and cultural perspective. I was in that school for 7 years of my early life, majority of the time speaking a language different to what was known at home. At some point, I was more fluent in Spanish than English! Imagine that… communication sometimes became a barrier at home since I couldn’t always find the words to express myself with to communicate with my parents. Words would always come into my mind in Spanish but could barely come out in English. Not only was this a problem at home, but when I moved on to middle school where barely anybody spoke Spanish and all my classes were in English, grades became a concern, for I would be speaking in a way which native English speakers would consider “backwards”. On the other hand, language has become my passion. I love learning new languages and experiencing different cultures. Traveling has taken a huge impact on my life. I can say I have visited well over 20 countries in my short 17 years of life and plan to go to many more. I remember vacationing in the Dominican Republic one time and there were many French people there that I was friends with, yet, we weren’t able to properly communicate. I remember we always did hand signals and even spoke a tiny bit in Spanish to try and see if we could understand each other, and believe it or not, it worked! But because of this experience, it inspired me to learn French and how to speak other languages, and ever since that day, I have done so. Everywhere you go, you can find an influence and in my eyes, the best way to educate yourself is by traveling and looking at things in different perspectives.

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.