samadhi santana discussion 6

My grandmother on my father’s side was an immigrant to the US, and she has a lot of trouble learning English when she came here.  All of her family religiously spoke spanish and despite their efforts to learn the language, close to nobody was able to fully grasp it and that includes my grandma. When i try to speak to her now it always feels like there is a barrier between us because unfortunately, the same way she didn’t pick up English, i didn’t pick up spanish so we’d try to find easier ways to speak to each other using her “broken English” and my “broken spanish”. in the vignette “No Speak English” Esperanza talks about the very few words that her mother can say in english such as “he not here” “no speak english” and “holy smokes” small phrases that allows her mother to communicate with the people around her.