Language is Key

            I slowly strolled down the vacant and wide hallway, carefully making my way down the small steep, still no one in sight. ‘I must be a few minutes early’, I thought to myself.  I then sit down, pull out my laptop, and opened Microsoft word. I hit the play button not sure what song will play, then I hear the instrumental of the song “Got Your Back” by T.I. featuring Keri Hilson. The smooth repeating beats started to play. As I hear the beats I started to write, not stopping to think but off the top of my head. I then felt a soft motion on my back. I pause the music and turn around to see one of my friends.

“Hey”

‘’Hey”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing much. Just listening to music.” My friend then looked over my head at my paper. She’s picked it up and started to read it.

“You writing a rap?”

“Yeah, why?”
“Nothin’, I just didn’t knew you rapped.”

“Not really. It’s just poetry I write and if I find a beat to match it then I rearrange the words.”

“Yo Bre.”
“Yea”

“Why you write so proper?”

“What do you mean?”
“Like you write the whole word out. Going, it’s ‘pose to be gonna, trying to be is ‘pose to be trynna be. If you supposed to be rapping you gotta rap like you black. Can’t use all these full and proper words. It don’t sound right. You sound so white.”

As she said those words, I thought about how I wrote and tried to relate it to how I talk. If I was doing the same thing but saying it out, the lyrics would have sounded a lot differently than how I would have written on paper.

In the words of James Baldwin, “It goes without saying, then, that language is also a political instrument, means, and proof or power. It is the most vivid and crucial key to identity: It reveals the private identity, and connects one with, or divorces one from, the larger, public, or communal identity.” What he’s saying is that people use different languages or dialogues in their multiple environments. This can also be known as code switching.

Growing up, my primary language was English, but since I am also Hispanic I also heard Spanish all around me. When I first started school, I was put into a Spanish Immersion Program where all my classes were taught in Spanish. When I was little I began to say small words like hola = hello, agua = water, and padre = father. I had taken the Spanish immersion classes until 5^th grade. I felt as though I had an advantage of everybody because I grew up hearing and beginning to speak Spanish.

A time when there was conflict dealing with my language was when I was in Spanish class in 7^th grade. No one was paying attention in class except for a few classmates and I. The next class period people who I haven’t even met before started to come and ask me to help with the Spanish homework. I asked them why me? They replied “because you’re Spanish you’re supposed to know this stuff.” Hearing that comment made me say no and continue to say no to anyone who asks me in the future. Not only are you stereotyping because of my race but you’re also assuming that since I talk Spanish in class, I talk it every single second of the day.

Another time there was a conflict with my language was when my friends and I were hanging out. There were a few business people walking around our school, and I was talking I guess you can say “ghetto”.

“Yo brov” said Person 1.

“What’s up man? Yo Bre” replied Person 2.

“Hey” I said.

“Whatsup witchu? Person 1 said.

“Nothin’ much, just chillin. Haven’t seen you in a minute.”

“Yeah I know. Been getting that bread.”

“O ok. You better be.”

From just hearing my voice and looking at me they assumed that I was unintelligent, loud, and unproper. But what they didn’t know what that I had to perform a welcome speech in front of them.

Once they saw me again about to perform my speech, I saw this look on their face. It looked as if their face was saying, 'she's going to act the same way she had before" But once I started speaking with a lot of new vocabulary that isn't on my grade level, my grammar, and the way my voice echoed throughout the auditorium, they looked and seemed shocked. As if they didn't think I could talk and act just like them. Caucasian, businessmen and businesswoman who has excellent vocabulary, speech, dialect, and can persuade an entire audience. I was just like them, the only different is my skin tone, race, and I'm a whole lot younger.

According to James Bolding, “language, also, far more dubiously, is meant to define the other—and, in this case, the other is refusing to be defined by a language that has never been able to recognize him” 

Language is a helpful way to see the personality or intelligence of the person speaking. It cannot completely define a person but it can show you where someone came from and the way they carry yourself.