My last name is Orozco, and with that is a long line of Guatemalans rooted deep in the culture. When my dad came to America, he quickly learned English and the “American way,” so when it came time to impart his language and his culture, he cut the roots, hoping that we could lead normal lives in this country. Although I carry the name Orozco, the cultural and linguistic knowledge from the people who have come before me has been severed.
The idea of “Shared Language Erosion” disconnects parents from their children when they rapidly pick up English and lose their heritage language in their early learning. Even with Latin American families who are more likely to maintain their native language, less than half are fluent bilinguals. With Asian American families, this number skyrockets to 90%.
I come from immigrants on both sides of my family. My dad is from Guatemala, and my grandma and her family immigrated from Japan. Because my great-grandma spoke more Japanese at home, my family was forced to learn and was more immersed in our culture. But when my great-grandma died, and our family became more assimilated, Japanese wasn’t a necessity; the language slowly faded from our lives. This language use was not forced in my dad’s house because he had a better grasp of English and wanted us to be fluent English speakers first and foremost.
When family members move to America, they often run into barriers because they aren’t proficient English speakers. Second-generation kids feel the trickle-down effect of language loss. In my experience, I tried to learn Spanish later in life, but it never stuck. But if I had learned earlier in my language acquisition years, then I would have been more likely to have been a fluent bilingual Spanish speaker.
Vanesa Elizondo, a senior ASL-English Interpretation major, shared a familiar frustration with how people treat her for not speaking her family’s native language.
“People in my culture have told me ALL the time that I need to learn Spanish or that I should be ashamed for not knowing Spanish,” she said. “They say I’m doing a disservice to my culture.”
One interaction especially stayed with her. While working at a bakery, a customer scolded her for not speaking Spanish. “He told me I should be ashamed and threw a dollar at me to go learn some.” She still doesn’t know if he meant it as an insult or some twisted form of “help”, but either way, it was humiliating.
At Columbia, many students share this experience. A significant portion of our student body is first-generation or from multilingual households, and professors often see students balancing cultural expectations with the pressure to fully assimilate into English-dominant environments. That same disconnect between looking the part culturally while feeling linguistically “not enough” shows up in social, work and internet environments.
These experiences show how shame comes not only from outside our communities but also from within them. Instead of recognizing how language loss happens – through assimilation pressure, economic survival and limited access to bilingual education – we blame individuals.
My father also ran into barriers when he was learning English, so he used us as a tool to better assimilate and learn English from us. I can remember as a little child when kids at school would say that their parents would read books to them, but in my case, I would read books to my dad. This did improve my dad’s and my English, but it showed me at an early age that assimilation was more important to him and for me to learn.
Spanish has always had a silent role in my life, but it has proven to be my barrier that came from embarrassment and shame. Because I look the way I do and I come from a first-generation immigrant, many people assume that I can speak fluent Spanish. They quickly realize, as I stumble on my words, that I don’t belong.
In today’s political climate, immigrant families — Latino families especially — are already being targeted. I feel connected to the struggles my community faces because of my outward appearance and the culture we share, but there’s a language barrier that sets me apart. I look the part, but in the eyes of my people, I will never be the same.
But language shouldn’t be the measure of belonging. Heritage is more than vocabulary; it’s the stories, the history and the love that brought my family here in the first place. The loss of a language is not proof of disconnection; it’s evidence of how hard our families worked to survive in a country that demands English before anything else.
Copy edited by Matt Brady
