Musing about losing one's mother tongue
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20051027-9999-1c...
By Luis Crosthwaite
October 27, 2005
Several years ago, I had the privilege of working with the Mixteco community in San Quint?n, Baja California, while doing some research for a book.
I intended to re-create the story of an indigenous Mexican migrant, from his origins in the state of Oaxaca, through his travels to various cities in
Mexico, and finally, his voyage to the United States.
The Mixtecos are a brave people who try to survive through the endemic misery that surrounds them. Different organizations, including the Mexican
government, have tried to help the Mixtecos hold onto their roots through their voyages and contact with other cultures, especially urban ones. In San
Quint?n, there are bilingual schools with classes in both Mixteco and Spanish.
A long-standing complaint from many teachers in these schools is that many Mixtecos choose to forbid their children from speaking their tongue. Those
parents prefer that their children speak, read and write exclusively in Spanish; they feel that speaking their mother tongue is a step backward, that
it will be of no use to them in the future, that the language is just a sad testament to their ignorance and poverty.
I remembered my experiences writing that book because recently, Daniel, an American nephew of Mexican descent, was telling me the reasons he didn't
speak Spanish. He told me that his mother, who was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States as a child, suffered from racial prejudice in
California, much of it because she didn't speak English.
She decided that her children wouldn't live through the same humiliations that had hurt her so much; so she made up her mind that her children would
speak only English. She saw it as the only way to spare them the pain of being born in a country where skin color and cultural differences were
reasons for discrimination.
In retrospect, Daniel understands his mother's love and motivations, but he still regrets that tough sacrifice.
"My mother's decision hurt us in the long run," he told me. "When we started working, we discovered that speaking Spanish would have been an advantage
for us in the workplace."
Losing one's mother tongue is not something to be taken lightly. Unfortunately, many Mexican immigrants in the United States, for various reasons,
make the same decision many Mixtecos do when they leave their birthplace: that their children speak exclusively the predominant language of their new
home.
Sometimes the decision is well thought-out; other times it is because of mere indolence. Parents let the child grow up not speaking Spanish because
it's easier for them. They let their children be entirely absorbed by their contact with television, school and their friends, and they make no effort
at home to fight what will eventually become a total or partial loss of the mother tongue.
It is ever more common to find young Latinos in the United States who can barely speak Spanish, or indeed, not at all. These young people, in turn,
will not have the necessary tools to transmit that language to their children.
Even though there's always someone eager to advocate that English be the only language spoken in the United States, cultural diversity, throughout
history, has been one of the strong foundations of this country.
Besides allowing their child to miss out on the great opportunity of being bilingual, parents who don't stimulate the learning of their mother tongue
are ensuring that their children lose a valuable cultural heritage, the last and most important connection to their roots.
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