Spanglish in the United States
Melissa Orona
English 100 A
Ms. Baer
March.08, 2011
Spanglish in the United States
I grew up in a predominately Caucasian neighborhood and because of the color of my skin they assumed I spoke Spanish. I was about eighteen years old when I learned to speak Spanish. I always told myself that once I had children I was going to make sure they knew how to speak Spanish because I believe language is a being part of your heritage and your identity. Now that my children are older I hear them talking on the phone to their friends in English and then throw some Spanish or vice versa. However Llon Stavans says in his article “Tickling The Tongue” that Spanglish is spoken (or better, broken) by millions of people of Hispanic descent in the United States—to be precise, around 35 million, according to the Year 2000 report by the U>S> Census bureau. And these are people who are not only uneducated and intellectually unsophisticated; they are no longer fluent in the language of Cervantes but have also failed to master that of Shakespeare (2).By this, the author seems to mean that these people are not getting the education that is needed because of the language barrier. We as parents need to put a stop to our children speaking Spanglish. I do believe that having the ability speaking both languages English and Spanish is a blessing. But not completing understanding either language completely is a complete disgrace to each language. Along the same lines in the article “Demystifying Language Mixing: Spanglish in School”. Peter Sayer writes “Indeed, as Spanglish has become more visible, it has also gained notoriety; it has variously been accused of corrupting and endangering the “real” Spanish language, and holding kids back: To accept Spanglish is to condemn the kids who speak it to be second-class citizens (Zentella,2002)”(96). That is to say are our children getting the education they need? Furthermore what would you say are the advantages and disadvantages of
English 100 A
Ms. Baer
March.08, 2011
Spanglish in the United States
I grew up in a predominately Caucasian neighborhood and because of the color of my skin they assumed I spoke Spanish. I was about eighteen years old when I learned to speak Spanish. I always told myself that once I had children I was going to make sure they knew how to speak Spanish because I believe language is a being part of your heritage and your identity. Now that my children are older I hear them talking on the phone to their friends in English and then throw some Spanish or vice versa. However Llon Stavans says in his article “Tickling The Tongue” that Spanglish is spoken (or better, broken) by millions of people of Hispanic descent in the United States—to be precise, around 35 million, according to the Year 2000 report by the U>S> Census bureau. And these are people who are not only uneducated and intellectually unsophisticated; they are no longer fluent in the language of Cervantes but have also failed to master that of Shakespeare (2).By this, the author seems to mean that these people are not getting the education that is needed because of the language barrier. We as parents need to put a stop to our children speaking Spanglish. I do believe that having the ability speaking both languages English and Spanish is a blessing. But not completing understanding either language completely is a complete disgrace to each language. Along the same lines in the article “Demystifying Language Mixing: Spanglish in School”. Peter Sayer writes “Indeed, as Spanglish has become more visible, it has also gained notoriety; it has variously been accused of corrupting and endangering the “real” Spanish language, and holding kids back: To accept Spanglish is to condemn the kids who speak it to be second-class citizens (Zentella,2002)”(96). That is to say are our children getting the education they need? Furthermore what would you say are the advantages and disadvantages of