Spanish or English: A Matter of Choice? (Part II)

Without seeking the notoriety, I became the center of attention at my new school—the Colegio Salesiano, in Granada, Nicaragua. Out of a population of four hundred students, I was the only one who didn't speak Spanish like a native. In fact, my command of the language was so atrocious that during recess any outsider would be able to discern my location: I was the one in the middle of a roving circle of adolescent boys that fired questions at me and then laughed uproariously at my convoluted answers.

The fame was certainly not of the kind one seeks voluntarily.

After a week or so of merciless teasing, I started to dread going to school. The harsh and often cruel jokes that my Spanish elicited began to weigh my spirit down. Fortunately, my fifth-grade teacher, Señor Frank Arana, was most understanding of my plight as his only "foreign" student, allowing me to make mistakes he would never tolerate in the rest of my classmates. Señor Arana seemed to have complete faith in my ability to catch up, and this belief encouraged me to work hard to master the language as quickly as possible.

The key players in this quest proved to be my new extended family. In addition to my parents and two sisters, seven other relatives—my maternal grandmother, two unmarried great aunts, my mother's sister, and her husband and daughter—shared the same roof. We lived in a marvelously large colonial home that had plenty of room for everyone. With three generations to play and interact with in my free time—and exclusively in Spanish—my acquisition of the language was placed on an accelerated track.

Particularly vital during this transition stage were my great-aunts—Chintita and Hildita, as they preferred their nieces and nephews to call them. Brimming with wit and good humor, they turned Spanish into an adventure—a game in which I learned to gauge the effect my choice of words and phrasing had on people and of how this, in turn, affected the way I was perceived. My great-aunts also taught me how to turn the tables on those who teased me, and before long my responses to their obnoxious questions were making others laugh at the interrogators, rather than at me. And to my great relief, once I ceased being an easy target, the game ceased to be fun for my tormentors.

Thus, thanks to my great-aunts' coaching and my desire, once again, to blend in—as well as wanting to please Señor Arana—within six months of my arrival to Nicaragua I was speaking Spanish like a native.

From that point on, Spanish became my joy, my public and private treasure. I began to absorb the language with every pore of my being, and I assimilated into Nicaraguan culture to such an extent that before the conclusion of my first year there, the students who once laughed at me forgot that I had once been foreigner, an exotic type of "gringo" who looked exactly like them, as opposed to having blond hair and blue eyes. (In that era, before the emergence of ethnic minorities in the United States, all gringos were supposed to look like Brad Pitt.) Moreover, to my great satisfaction and pride, at the conclusion of eighth grade I received the award for top student in the literature class. I had competed against the very students who three years earlier had teased me mercilessly for my awkwardness of their native language and I was now outperforming them. That accomplishment made me fall completely in love with Spanish.

As a result, my identity shifted once again, in the opposite direction. I now lived in what once had been an alien world with both feet planted firmly on the ground; and I was absolutely loving every minute of the experience of moving away from my "Americaness" toward fully embracing my Nicaraguan heritage.

Spanish or English: A Matter of Choice? (Part I)

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.
Noam Chomsky

The limits of my language means the limits of my world.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which a person faces and uses his experience.
James Baldwin

(The question that prompted this essay has been dogging me for weeks. At first I believed I could provide a short, simple answer. That has not been the case, however. To keep from making this piece overly long, and because I haven't yet finished it, I will post "Spanish or English?" in several parts.)


The question came without forewarning, and in Spanish: “Dr. Sirias, what language do you prefer? English or Spanish?”

The eyes of every adolescent in that ninth-grade Spanish-language literature classroom were on me, eager to hear my reply. I fumbled through my answer, trying in earnest to please the questioner, but I soon found myself lost in a maze of recollections, trying to grasp the key moments of my life with regard to language. Mercifully, before long I noticed the students’ gazes glazing over. Those are looks I usually dread, but on this day I welcomed them. My unsteady and rather incoherent reply had lost their interest. Besides, something I said along the way steered the discussion in another direction of far greater interest to ninth graders.

The awkward moment was forgotten, but for days afterward the question continued to nag me, and while it turned in my head it elicited other questions:

What was, in fact, my preferred language?

Did I choose that language, or did circumstances choose it for me?

The answers, at least in my case—and I suspect it’s the same with most bilingual people—is not that simple.

Growing up in Los Angeles, the first five years of my life were equal parts Spanish and English. At the time my mother was learning English, so I had no option but to communicate with her in Spanish. Also, my paternal grandmother, who lived nearby, never mastered English, so Spanish was the language in which I related to her. What’s more, my parents’ closest relatives and friends preferred Spanish. Thus, Spanish was the language I associated with family, as well as with feeling safe and loved.

Yet English reigned in the world beyond this intimate circle, and through my fully bilingual father, neighborhood friends, cousins, radio, and television, I acquired this language as well. I can’t say that I remember having to work at becoming bilingual; rather, it seems that with childlike ease I had made both languages part of me.

But this peaceful linguistic co-existence changed abruptly my first day in kindergarten. Almost overnight, the need to communicate effectively in Spanish ceased. English became the language of new friends, of pleasing teachers, of reading and, soon to follow, writing. And it wasn’t a matter of teachers forcing me to abandon the language of home—although they certainly failed to mention that it would benefit me to become competent in Spanish—but what happened was that my identity shifted radically, and I wanted, more than anything, to fit in seamlessly with my English-speaking classmates.

Before long I was code-switching at home, in conversations with my mother. “Mamá, have you seen my almohada?” I’d asked when I couldn’t find my favorite pillow. Or, “Mamá, quiero un sandwich de peanut butter y jelly.” But my newfound talent for mixing languages didn’t impress her. In fact, she became exasperated with what she saw as sheer laziness, of my lack of the intellectual discipline necessary to be in command of her native language. The conflict came to a head when, having code-switched once too often, my mother said to me, “Stop that! I’d prefer you speak to me only in English rather than hearing you speak that way.”

I still recall that as a liberating day.

I had been freed of the chains Spanish had started to represent, not because I didn’t like the language, but because my most important relationships were now in English, and with few opportunities to practice, using Spanish became work in which I had to perform mental calisthenics to find the right words, the correct verb tenses, and the proper syntax. My formal instruction in language was now exclusively in English and the Spanish voices that once swarmed inside of my head became muted, if not silent. After my mother reprimanded me, I gladly renounced Spanish as well—but little could I foresee the turn of events my life would take in only a matter of years.

Still, I was happy to convert to monolingualism—knowing only one language represented a lot less work. Of course I understood just about everything people said in Spanish, but to speak the language became increasingly difficult each passing day. Moreover, in the late 1950s and early 1960s there were few opportunities to practice outside of the home. Although we still have quite a way to go, in comparison to today, the United States was absolutely intolerant of any language other than English being used in public.

Since language has always played an important role in my life, I absorbed every word and nuance of English with relish. The narrative of my life was now being written almost entirely in that language, with the concession of a few words of Spanish sprinkled in to remind me of the culture of home. But the world I wanted to conquer, to excel in, spoke English: the language I now associated with becoming a successful “American.”

But then, without warning, when I had just turned eleven, my parents announced that we were moving to Nicaragua, the land of their birth. My father had received a job offer that would free him from working in a factory and my mother, who was experiencing health problems, wanted to live close to her family. Overnight, I had been ripped away from the solid footing and emotional comfort of English. Once in Nicaragua, I was placed in a monolingual, all-boys, Catholic school. And if I wished to avoid being the object of ridicule—my difficulties in Spanish rendered me entertainment-fodder for my new classmates—for the first time in my life I had to work, and work hard and fast, to learn a language.

The Virgin Mary: Once Again at the Crux of the Nicaraguan Divide

El presidente de la República, Daniel Ortega, invitó a los funcionarios de todas las instancias del gobierno a celebrar con entusiasmo y fervor religioso las festividades en honor a la Inmaculada Concepción de María.
(The president of the Republic, Daniel Ortega, invited functionaries from all branches of government to celebrate with enthusiasm and religious fervor the festivities in honor of the Immaculate Conception of Mary).
A Message on El Pueblo Presidente, Daniel Ortega’s official website.


Beginning in August of this year, supporters of Daniel Ortega’s presidency began to hold vigils in several of Managua’s traffic roundabouts to “pray against hate”—an official Danielista slogan. In mid-November, a few days after the municipal elections, large images of the Virgin Mary, in her guise as the Immaculate Conception, appeared mysteriously, overnight, on the two roundabouts where the vigils were most commonly held and where, during the recent civil disturbances, Sandinistas congregated to wave black and red flags—the party colors.

Although no organization or government agency officially claims responsibility for the Virgins’ sudden appearance—the images were placed on concrete pedestals and bolted down with reinforced steel bars—virtually every press report says that it was the work of Sandinistas, and the party has yet to issue a denial of this assertion.

The opposition—who profess to be the “legitimate” Catholics—have denounced the placing of the statues in the roundabouts as a cynical move on the part of the Sandinistas—the manipulation of a sacred Catholic symbol for political purposes.

And then tensions spilled over when, under the cover of night, persons unknown splashed one of the images with red paint, the color of the Liberal Party, the Sandinistas’ most noted opposition. According to reports in El Nuevo Diario the effect was dramatic: the Virgin looked as if she had uncontrollably shed buckets of blood red tears. An anonymous group soon removed the paint; but that same night someone took a sledge-hammer to the statue and pounded away until the Virgin’s face was completely destroyed and the image had been knocked off the concrete pedestal.

The Nicaraguan Council of Catholic Bishops has asked the government to remove the images to avoid further desecration of a religious symbol that’s important to Nicaraguan Catholics. As of yet, the request has been ignored.

I’ve been watching these events with both concern and fascination. The issue of the apparition of the Virgin Mary in the Chontales town of Cuapa—an event fully accepted by the Nicaraguan Catholic Church—constitutes the central conflict of my novel Bernardo and the Virgin. After Mary appeared to Bernardo Martínez, the former tailor and volunteer sacristan shared his visions and, as a result, he unwittingly placed himself in the center of a political storm—a vortex so harrowing that the seer eventually had to take refuge for several years in a seminary. And throughout the rest of the country belief in or rejection of Bernardo’s vision became the litmus test of whether a person was against or for the Sandinistas and their Revolution.

Nicaraguans, then, have walked this path before. Several priests who have served in various Central American nations have assured me that Nicaragua is the most Marian nation in the region. That is, the people’s devotion to the Virgin is palpable to the point where at least one priest confessed that he was baffled—and even a little concerned—by the Nicaraguans’ love for Mary because, in his eyes at least, it made devotion to her son, Jesus, seem secondary. In fact, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception—largely celebrated on the night of December 7, the eve of the actual commemoration—outranks Christmas Day in importance, hence the Sandinistas’ call for government functionaries to celebrate the day with “enthusiasm and religious fervor.”

Once again, the Virgin Mary is at the heart of a political tempest, gazing down upon a fully divided Nicaragua. What I find baffling is that the Sandinistas have now embraced her when in the 80s they did everything within their power to censor the news of her appearance and to discredit Bernardo Martínez completely. Now, the questions that keep coming to mind are: what do Daniel Ortega’s followers have to gain by appropriating Mary? Do they, since their rejection of the apparition in Cuapa proved disastrous in the 80s, wish to cut off the opposition before dissidents rally around Nicaragua’s devotion to Mary? What exactly is Daniel’s strategy?

The Sandinistas’ move appears to be a certain blunder, a feeble attempt by Daniel Ortega and his followers to co-op the figure of Mary before she, once again, like in the 80s, galvanizes the opposition. But above all, the Sandinistas’ push to pass as devout followers of this religious figure, who’s central to their compatriot’s spiritual belief system, is so transparent, so insincere—because faith cannot be falsified for long—that it’s, without a doubt, destined to backfire and fail.