Fall 2015, 1st prize winner
Blog Post 1
I adore volunteering at the Family Learning Center and I myself learn something new each and every Tuesday that I am there. The kids are different from those I am used to working with back home. Their culture, very much influenced by a Latin American upbringing and the Spanish language, is much different from modern day white US culture. Their modes of communication are like a code, using slang in both English and Spanish, identifying each other as a part of a group that understands one another and blocks out others who may be around and do not use the same kind of blending.
My first day at the Family Learning Center I kept quiet for the first hour or so, not revealing that I speak and understand Spanish. I was curious to see how the kids would act around me and wanted to see what their assumptions would be. The results were hilarious. For example; there was one boy, Angel. I was helping him to read a book when his friend Roberto came and sat next to us and started making fun of Angel for wanting to read with me. He kept saying "te gusta la vieja madre" which translates to "you have a crush on/like the old mother." That's when I couldn't stay under my disguise any longer and started laughing and then proceeded to read the book to Angel while translating the words into Spanish so that Roberto knew that I understood him. It was an instantly bonding moment because although Roberto was slightly embarrassed, he was more overwhelmed with the idea of starting to see me as one of them; someone who speaks both Spanish and English. Not only did it show that we could communicate in both languages but it showed the kids that you do not have to look as though you speak Spanish in order to be able to. That's the wonderful thing about kids, they see something out of the ordinary and they have no shame in expressing their confusion because the social boundaries are not yet known. I received a lot of 'but you're white, why do you speak Spanish?' type questions. The whole scene created quite a distraction but once I had the kids around me sit down and continue with their homework I found that speaking in Spanish worked more efficiently than in English because we had then established that the kids and I were equals.
There is one student whom I have worked with everyday of volunteering. Her name is Diana. On the first day we met it was impossible to keep her attention on any item of homework for more than 30 seconds, especially if my attention was drawn to someone else for even a moment. I tried explaining the concept of addition to her in every way I knew how: with blocks, drawings, in English, in Spanish, with fingers etc., but no matter what I tried she would stop listening halfway through every single sentence. By the end of the day we had made some progress but it was clear to me that what she needed in order to succeed on her own was going to be the proper amount of attention and encouragement. This is a tightrope to walk with kids because if you give too much, they become dependent on your support, but if you give too little, they will either act out in hopes of receiving more attention or give up on the task at hand. I played out my version of what felt like the right ratio of attention and letting her work on her own and my experience with her today was a completely transformed one. I had been reading with another student and she came up repeatedly asking for my help so the student and I took a break at the end of our page and Diana sat next to us while I explained how to add 2 to any number. After the explanation I turned back towards the student with the book and we kept reading. Diana had her head down working on her homework the entire time that we were reading the book and by the end she had finished her homework without asking for further explanation and I of course told her how proud I was of her afterwards. That one moment changed the relationship between the two of us from then on out because she understands that I will help her when she needs it but not when she is only asking out of boredom or the want for attention.
Blog post 2
In the last few weeks of my linguistics class we have been learning about linguistic profiling and the implications that different dialects have in our society. In almost every way I find linguistic profiling to be a negative thing but it is interesting to observe. Working at the family learning Center I am reminded each and every time that I go there that the kids that I work with and talk to everyday forget that I understand what they are saying when they switch between English and Spanish. I can tell because they will often make fun of me in Spanish and then tell me that they said something completely different when they translate it into English. My hypothesis is that this is due to the way that these children have linguistically profiled me; they believe that because my English is very "regular" and "correct" sounding that there is no way that I could be apart of their bilingual culture. This is partially because my L1 is English and my L2 is Spanish while theirs is the reverse so our phonological interference is opposite (when it happens). These children have learned how to quickly identify when someone has a similar background to their own and it has been surprising to find that linguistic profiling is their primary way of doing so and has much less to do with racial profiling.
As happy as these kids are to connect, play games, and talk with the adults/volunteers at the Family Learning Center, they are clear to index that they belong to a very specific (and in their minds exclusive) identity. They index this through slang terms that language cross with both Spanish and English and by mocking the language of those who try and overlap in both languages with them. The point of this mockery is to let the mocked know that they are an outsider to some degree and for comedic effect within the speakers peer group. For example; today I was talking with a young girl (probably around the age of six or seven) named Lucia and after reading together the instructions for her math homework in her Spanish workbook she asked me to say the word "corazon", the Spanish word for "heart". When pronouncing the word I put accidental emphasis on the "o" which made the word sound more like "corazOn". She immediately burst out laughing and speaking to all of her friends nearby in Spanish with emphasis on letters where there shouldn't be any. In doing so she was successful in making her friends laugh and in letting me know that she thought I had made a hilariously stupid mistake.
Language is used for so many different purposes and to achieve so many different outcomes whether these outcomes are subconscious or not and working at the Family Learning Center is an extremely interesting and insightful way to observe these uses of language.
Blog Post 3
The more time I spend with these kids the clearer their personalities, goals, lifestyles, and linguistic behaviors become. These children belong to a very specific community of practice. Not only are they all bilingual in Spanish and English but the vast majority of them are more comfortable with Spanish and would consider it their L1 even though they were born in the United States and have been around English their whole lives. Most of the kids also live in close proximity of one another and/or are familialy related, being siblings or cousins ect. All of these factors explain their linguistic similarities. Of course this does not apply to all of the students I work with but for the purposes of this blog, the kids who do belong to this community of practice is who I will be referencing.
So, what are these similarities? Most prominently, code switching. This is a pretty logical and intuitive aspect once you know these kids background but what I find most interesting is when they decide to code switch and what the social purpose may be. At first the code switching happened most when they were saying something that they didn't want me to hear and understand, but once my fluency became realized the times of use drastically changed. I have been able to identify three main settings where code switching is used:
Setting 1- As a means of mutual understanding in a moment of confusion. If I explain a math concept in English and the child doesn't understand or has a question, often times I will repeat my explanation while translating the most confusing parts into Spanish or the child will ask a question about whichever part of the assignment confuses them most in a combination of both English and Spanish.
Setting 2- To keep secrecy. If the kids are talking about something inappropriate it will almost always be in Spanish regardless of the fact that they know I understand. I hypothesize that this is because they code switch into Spanish in that context on a normal daily basis to subconsciously exclude those who don't understand and build a sense of unity. It is also probably because if they said the same words in English they would get in trouble with their teachers in school.
Setting 3- To tell stories or plan. When recounting a story or something that has happened to them and the goal is to get the attention of the entire table the stories will be told almost entirely in Spanish. Also when planning an event such as who to walk home with after tutoring or when to have a play date the dialogue will be almost entirely in Spanish. I believe this to be because it is the language they speak at home and in most non-academic settings so when the topic isn't academic it makes sense to speak in Spanish. Especially the story-telling because if it is a joke or story about something that happened outside of school it is most likely that the environment of the physical moment that is being retold was in Spanish. What I mean by that is; if a kid is telling a story about how they fell off their bike, odds are they were with friends or family at the time they fell off the bike. If that is true then during the time of the actual fall all of the surrounding conversations and voices were in Spanish, so when remembering back to that time it is natural to retell it in Spanish instead of translating what was said into English.
I have loved getting to know these kids and their families and I thank the Linguistics department for introducing me to this opportunity.