Being Hispanic and bilingual is one of the best things in the world. It is like being apart of secret club that not just anybody can be apart of. Sometimes you can catch people talking smack and sometimes you make new friends. Being bilingual just makes everything better like ordering food and switching back and forth with English and Spanish and mix them together and make Spanglish. I like to fool people because I may not look Hispanic but when people are talking in Spanish I play my position and just listen in on the conversation they are having because it usually is about someone talking bad about them behind their backs. Then when I speak in the same language the reaction on their faces just satisfies me.
There’s another whole world of entertainment that’s open to you when you’re bilingual. You can watch novelas, Spanish soap operas, read Spanish books and listen and understand Spanish music. It is such a beautiful thing to have that connection with your culture and the language. I’m still learning it now more and more thanks to my parents and family members. I am able to connect and talk to my grandparents easily and those who also speak Spanish. I want to be able to pass on the Spanish language to my kids the same way as what my parents did to me and taught me how to speak the language and go to school to learn English. Being from Dominican parents and being able to speak Spanish helps broaden my audience and knowing there is lots of Spanish speaking people out there which is definitely a way that I can create a connection with them, because I’m bilingual.
Being bilingual does feel like having a super power that just unlocks different parts of the world. So to have that, to be able to watch something and understand or pick up a conversation here and there or read an article and not have to hit the translate button on Google, It feels amazing.
Overall, being able to speak more than one language is just more fun.
Being bilingual can have its downsides. We get the reputation that we butcher the Spanish language and butcher English too. Like when I’m talking to my mom, and it’s like I’m talking in Spanish, but I think in English, but then the words come out, and they’re wrong. Then my mom’s is like, “That’s not how you pronounce it.” then corrects my sentence. You can end up biting your own tongue switching back and forth with the languages you know.
I didn’t realize until I was in elementary school, I ordered an “Esprite” at a deli, and my friends laughed at me, because my whole life, until I was 10 years old, I thought it was “Esprite”, but it was actually Sprite. My accent has gone away now and I mostly speak English to my friends and only Spanish when I’m around my family.
