General Digest, Vol 42, Issue 5
I am also the third generation born in this country. My father was raised in
East L.A. his grandparents came from Aguascalientes and Culiacan. My father
only spoke spanish until the age of 5 when he started attending public
school. My mother is a NewYorican ( a Puerto Rican from New York) her mother
came as a girl w/parents from Humacao, PR. She says she dosen't ever
remember not understanding both english and spanish. While both my parents
are bilingual they never taught their children spanish. They would say they
spoke primarily in english because they "think in english". The funny thing
is that they spoke spanish around us just enough for us to understand what
was being said when we heard the language, but we can't speak it. I have
learned that the 3rd generation born in the US usually don't speak spanish.
The first must speak it to communicate w/parents. The 2nd generation usually
speak it to communicate w/grandparents who frequently take care of them as
children. The third generation rarely speak spanish fluently. I have about
30 first cousins and none of them speak spanish except 2 of them who moved
to Mexico for an extended period of time to learn the language. I personally
feel like my parent did me a diservice.
On Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 4:03 PM,
wrote: