Talking the talk: Keeping Spanish alive through generations

After college, I jumped blindly into an adventure that took me to live in Mazatlán, the vacation town along Mexico’s Pacific coast.

I was a young California girl and, with my fluent American English, it wasn’t hard to find a job. I answered an ad and was hired right away as an “opener,” the first person in a chain of sales people who hawk time-share condominiums to visiting tourists. I was given a brief training orientation, some brochures and an assigned post: working as a “hostess” in a beachside cafe.

I say “hostess” because, while that was my title, my job really was to welcome foreign tourists and seat them, but then engage them in a conversation that would lead to an invitation to a free breakfast at the time-share presentation.

My trainer smiled and said she was sure I’d have a lot of “éxito.” “Éxito?,” I asked? “How do you say ...?” she paused, “Oh, yes. Success!”

You see, even though my mother is from Mexico, I didn’t speak Spanish growing up. The story I was told was that, in my hometown in the southern San Joaquin Valley, kids who entered school speaking Spanish were set on a track that would take them toward trade programs, not college. My mom decided her children would speak English first. She figured we’d learn Spanish down the road.

For me, “down the road” didn’t come until I reached Mazatlán, which led me to the beachside cafe, where the first party to walk in was a group of local businessmen, not time-share targets. A fellow called me over and, in Spanish, of course, asked for something, but I didn’t understand until he pointed to his friend’s set of utensils. “Oh!” I said, spinning around to go get them. That’s when I heard him mutter to his friend, “No entiende español.” Well, that much I understood. I’d been caught.

The next customers to walk in were a relief – a young couple on honeymoon from the States. Thank goodness. I happily set to talking with them about Mazatlán, the charming town center, the beaches. It was fun. I felt almost guilty about inviting them to the time-share breakfast but, surprisingly, they were into it. So I signed them up and set their pickup time. At the end, the fellow said, “Wow! You know, your English is so good. You barely have an accent!”

An accent? A California accent, maybe. But that’s not what he meant. He’d assumed I was a local. Good thing he hadn’t heard my Spanish.

I’m not alone in being a U.S.-born Latina who didn’t grow up speaking Spanish. A Pew Hispanic Center survey of people born to Latino immigrants found 82 percent could speak Spanish at least “pretty well,” meaning the rest, nearly 1 in 5, were more like me, a bit lost in translation. By the time we second-generation Latinos become parents, fewer than half of our kids continue to speak Spanish “very well” or even “pretty well.”

I see this with my own boys. Even though I spoke Spanish to them as babies and enrolled them in Spanish-immersion elementary schools, and even though we lived in Mexico for more than a year, for Pete’s sake, they pretty much go mute when prompted to speak in Spanish.

This decline in fluency with newer generations runs counter to widespread perceptions that Latino immigrants do not assimilate. Census data show that even when first-generation immigrants speak Spanish in their homes, their children are likely to embrace English, too.

In Merced County, more than 42 percent of residents live in a home where Spanish is spoken, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. But, of those people, more than 54 percent say they speak English “very well.” That rate was similar to that of homes where other languages are spoken. Of the 2.4 percent of Merced County folks who live in a home where Portuguese is spoken, 58 percent said they spoke English “very well.” And, for the 2.2 percent of people in homes where Hmong is spoken, 53 percent spoke English “very well.”

I love that my children are doing well in English, but I also hope they, like me, will prove to be late-bloomers when it comes to Spanish. Not only because having a second language will open more opportunities for them, which it will, but because it will broaden their abilities to understand how others see the world. Without Spanish, they may never understand that “lo siento” is not the apology one hears in “I’m sorry,” but a phrase meaning empathy – “I feel it.” They’ll never have the happenstance joy of meeting a “tocayo” – someone with the same name, a status that leads to instant friendship. Or, they may miss out on the “recalentada,” the “reheating” of food left over from a party at a continuation of the party the next day.

Having now been a Spanish speaker for more than half of my life, I am so happy to be in a place like the San Joaquin Valley where it regularly opens new experiences. At home, the boys and I can flip channels to enjoy a classic TV show like “Star Trek” or a new telenovela – OK, I’ll enjoy the novela more than they will. When driving, I can set the radio to any of the great country music stations, or slide the dial over to listen to rancheros. Being able to speak Spanish, and to share that with my kids, I feel, allows us to be more fully engaged in our community.

When I go out to Mexican restaurants, I’ll often chat with the waitresses to learn about their families and what brought them to Merced. Recently, I was able to offer some sightseeing recommendations to one woman who was about to accompany her father on a vacation to Mexico City. I told her about the majestic central plaza, the Zócalo, and the amazing pyramids north of the city. It was a great feeling to be able to share my excitement for those places with her.

And I didn’t even have to sign her up for a time-share.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 7:06 PM with the headline "Talking the talk: Keeping Spanish alive through generations."