Tonight I was actually embarrassed. We spent time with our friend's parents from Spain, and I was actually embarrassed that I could not communicate in their home language with them. I was obviously embarrassed as a 1st generation americanborn from Cuban decent. I was secondly feeling like a stupid american, expecting every other nationality to know english, but never spending more than a few minutes of my life on high school conjugations.
My mother would have spoken to us in her mother tongue hD she not been disuaded by the 1970s pediatrician who told her that if she continued to speak to her children in Spanish, they would end up with lisps or speech impediments or worse. She never attempted to teach us again. It breaks my heart to even write this.
Maybe, if american fear hadn't turned a doctor into an idiot in the 70s, i'd be bilingual right now. Maybe, if I tried a little harder, i'd be bilingual right now. Whatever the case, all I know is that I am just lingual (thankfully), and can't blame anyone else in the world for it. But I can blush when my friend introduces me as a Cubana who can't speak Spanish. So, my new goal, to work on my mother's mother tongue. To work with myself and my children (who will clearly pick it up sooner than I, without a lisp or speech impediment or worse!) I know I can do it. It is truly never to late to learn something, anything, but especially something that is in my blood and in my heart. Maybe next years' personal blogging challenge will be written en español!
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