#family friend is a linguist and she had such trouble getting employed

[724bees]

after deciding not to be a software engineer i really dont know what im going to do. mom suggested kids math teacher

#b #im eye emoji at linguistics or tbh any language subject bc it makes serotonin go brrr #but idk what kind of jobs are at the end of that #family friend is a linguist and she had such trouble getting employed #arabic and islam studies at au sounds really cool #spending 6 months doing nothing but learning arabic sounds v v fun #but like aha and then what #also i dont really wanna go back to a pbl university its not for me #sighh

[pyeonnji]

Bilingual Privilege

En español

This post won’t be about linguistics, pedagogy, or any theory to speak about bilingualism and its effects or whatever. In fact, I only wish to share my experience while being in Colombia, a country that strives to include bilingualism, particularly English, as part of its Spanish-speaking academic and workforce curriculum. This is a reflection on how hard you work, and my admiration. It’s an ode to your dedication, and my desire to insert it into my own sense of discipline.

 And it starts with one comment.

There’s one specific comment I often get whenever I tell someone I can speak English, and that is “you must be very smart” or worse, “I wish I were as intelligent as you.” While I do admit I appreciate these comments, I can’t help but feel bothered by them. These particular comments make me uncomfortable, and instead of a polite “thank you,” I chew on the idea that I do not deserve any praise at all for something that was gifted to me by completely random events in my life.

I’m a native speaker of English, but it’s not because I’m smart. I’m a native speaker only because that was the environment I was sent to. I am not smart. I am not better.

I am privileged. I’ve been lucky.

 My family and I migrated to the United States when I was around 4 years old, meaning I’d taken on the new language in the most ideal age span. Initially, I began school in a transitional program using both English and Spanish. After the 3rd grade, I was switched into an English-only program, and from then on until my high school years I’d only ever taken classes in English. Still, I was bilingual. My mother began to restrict the use of English in our home once she noticed we’d grown dependent on communicating in English rather than embrace the challenges of Spanish grammar. This continuous switch between the two languages allowed me to come back to Colombia to finish high school without any great disadvantage.

Colombia has become a nation that strives to make its citizens competent in at least two languages, including Spanish and primarily English as a second language. This has created a major change in the schooling system in their endeavor to design a proper program to ensure that all graduates have at least a conversational level of English. However, the goal is far too different from our reality. In the case of Pereira, only a small percentage of people speak English, a percentage so small that it is impossible to cater to the demand of English-speaking students, and English-speaking employees.

Having lived 9 years in Pereira, I’ve witnessed the struggle from both ends to meet this bilingual standard. As a student, I saw most of my classmates’ growing despair when their graduation was threatened by their lack of understanding of English. As a worker, I witnessed my colleagues compensate their lack of English by putting two times, maybe three times the effort into managing the fewer skills they had to communicate when required to do so. That is, if they even managed to get the job to begin with. As a teacher, I witnessed my students’ weakened motivation to learn the language, cluttered by the constant fear of failure.

These are all struggles I never had to deal with. I’ve been blessed with a good education. I’ve been granted an almost dull experience in university because I had the resources to get by. I have not lived through the trouble of finding a job merely because I have that one bonus that gives me almost an exclusive pass to be employed. And I’m well aware that while I do achieve benefits from it, it is somehow unfair. On behalf of this unfairness, I feel as if I must apologize.

Instead, I’ve given myself the responsibility to educate myself on the privilege this translates into and help those around me whom have not had the same luck I have had. Perhaps I may not understand the entirety of my friends’ and family’s struggles, but the mere realization of our differences makes me appreciate them, all of you, twice as much.

#Bilingual #Bilingualism #Colombia #English #Spanish #Español #Inglés #Bilingüismo #Bilingüe #Privilege #Privilegio