Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

Quem ve cara, nao ve coracao. He who sees the face, doesn’t see the heart. This is an old Portuguese saying that my grandmother would often say to me as a child. Anzaldua would agree. “If a person has a low estimation of my native tongue, than she also has a low estimation of me” (p.169). People jump to conclusions merely because of your accent or bilingualism. There are many Americans today that only see the face. The cultural diversity of America is not fully embraced. “If you want to be American, speak American” (p.165) Anzaldua was told by a teacher after she spoke Spanish in the classroom. Anzaldua, my mother, and I had a difficult time balancing our dual heritage in a society that did not accept us. I come from a Portuguese-speaking family. I am a Portuguese-American. Sou portugues e americano. My mother also had a hard time fitting into American society. She, like Anzaldua, did not speak English as a first language. She moved to the United States from Portugal when she was only fourteen. She came over with her parents, siblings, uncles and aunts, and her cousins. Not one of them spoke a word of English. The promise of freedom, liberty, and a whole new life is what brought them to American soil. They all crammed into a tiny house in Newark, New Jersey. My mother and her siblings and cousins had to go to an American school. They had to learn the English language or face the consequences. My mother would often get hit by the teacher, as Anzaldua described, for speaking Portuguese. She had one teacher that would throw chalkboard erasers at her when she would speak Portuguese. She learned to be quiet very quickly. “Flies don’t enter a closed mouth” (p.165), as Anzaldua would say. My mother had to “tame her wild tongue” because every time she opened her mouth, the words flew out with a thick accent. “Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out” (p.165) It is impossible for my mother to tame her tongue completely. The only way she could conform was to be quiet. When she spoke, she would get teased. Some of her classmates would make fun of the way she pronounced English words. She was perceived to be less intelligent than the other kids. My grandfather and my uncle also faced hardships getting decent jobs. Because they could not speak English well, nobody wanted to hire them for good pay. They struggled to feed their large family. Both Anzaldua and my mother faced hardships because English was not their first language. “I remember being caught speaking Spanish at recess—that was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler” (p.165), Anzaldua recalled. She was harassed at school for speaking another language. There is great prejudice in this country towards different cultures, such as the Spanish and the Portuguese. Throughout history, every race, ethnicity, and religion has experienced hatred and cruelty merely because they are different. I, however, was a little more fortunate. My mother married an American, giving me an Irish last name. I am white. I speak free of any accent. Those who see only the face allowed me to belong to their society. However, I cannot escape my native tongue. I grew up in a bilingual environment. I cannot conceal my true identity. Sou Portugues. I can also relate to Anzaldua’s story. In school, no one knew of my foreign tongue. I fit in. I belonged. It was not until I began having friends over the house that the secret came out. My mother would speak to me in Portuguese in front of them. They would go back to school and tell other kids. The news spread like a wildfire. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed in front of the kids that teased me, and the ones that didn’t. I felt as though I didn’t belong anymore, that my “white” mask had been removed. One morning on the bus ride to Elementary School, I had overheard a white boy making fun of a Hispanic girl. I could see that nobody seemed to care. Kids were either laughing or just ignoring the situation. I sympathized with her. I told the kid to stop or I would tell the bus driver, and he did. I remember the girl was just sitting there with this blank look on her face. I feel the pain and agony behind it. I knew all she wanted to do was cry. I understood the frustration and anger that no one else could. Posso ver a coracao. I could see her heart. She looked at me and smiled. Gosta de sentar-se comigo? I knew she understood me. We sat next to each other on the bus everyday in elementary school. Nobody ever bullied her or me on that bus again. I feel as though my experiences have been similar to Anzaldua’s experiences. There is a difference I noticed, however. Anzaldua also faces discrimination by other Spanish-speakers because she is Chicana. This is not the case amongst the Portuguese people. The two major Portuguese-speaking countries are Portugal and Brazil. Even though the differences in the two dialects are slight, it is immediately apparent to a native speaker which country the person is from just by exchanging a few words. Anzaldua describes the relationship between a Chicano-speaker and a Spanish-speaker as almost uncomfortable. This is not the case between a Brazilian and someone from Portugal. There may be jokes or friendly teasing, but there is no tense hostility or dislike of the other person because of their different dialect. This is an interesting difference between Anzaldua and myself. This difference might be related to the fact that there are not as many differences in the Portuguese language, as in Spanish. Spanish is much more widely used amongst many types of people from many different areas of the world. Diz-me com quem andas, e dir-te-ei quem es, my mother would say to me. Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are. Not everyone will accept you for who you are, but those people really do not matter. True friends will not judge you. Anzaldua used that same saying in Spanish, Dime con quien andas y te dire quien es (p.172). Meu familia e Portugues. Sou Portugues. Sou Americano. I have learned throughout my life to embrace my dual heritage. Falo com orgulho. I speak with pride. I will keep my beautiful language alive. Anzaldua, my mother, and other bilinguals and immigrants will one day be able to walk beside a white person, without fear of discrimination. Junto. Together. The hatred, intolerance, and prejudice must come to an end. “Imagine all the people, sharing all the world” (Lennon, John. Imagine. Parophone. 1971). This is a dream in progress. There is hope for us. A esperanca e a ultima a morre. Hope is the last to die.