Me siento orgullosa of where I'm from. Jersey City, New Jersey is where I call home, where my family has lived all of my life and of that I'm proud. Oftentimes when I walk around downtown, I run into my cousins, uncles, aunts, or friends of the family. Mi familia y mi communidad are one and the same.
No me siento orgullosa ahora. ¿La movimiento de "English Only" ha llegado en mi communidad? In other words, what the f*ck?
I was home for only a couple of days for Spring Break. What were the chances of encountering este vandalismo? This sign is on Jersey Avenue in downtown Jersey City, between Newark Avenue and Christopher Columbus Drive (yes, right by a street named after the genocidaire we love to celebrate. Maybe a little fitting?).
Let me provide some context.
Mi ciudad has been changing rapidly. It seems like cada tiempo I come home from college, either a new building is going up or an old building is coming down. Taking the Path train (which runs between New Jersey and Manhattan) is like walking through a swarm of real estate ads, boasting new condominiums springing up all over. "The Oakman." "The One." Gentrification has become as commonplace as las temperoradas cambian. The Temptations song, "Ball of Confusion" lyric, "people moving in / people moving out / why because of the color of their skin" is apt.
We've remained diverse in the midst of the changing faces. In 2015, like in años pasados, Jersey City was named the second most diverse city in the United States by a finance website called WalletHub. The demographics from the 2010 Census are 32.7 percent White, 27.6 percent Latino, 25.8 percent African-American, and 23.7 percent Asian. In fact, previous census reports showed that 52.1 percent of respondents spoke languages other than English en la casa.
Despite the vast increase of babies and perros around the neighborhood (they're everywhere), most of el racismo has, as per this millennia, been covert. A microaggression here. A preference for whiteness there. This is not new to this barrio, this city, this state, or este país.
But this? I've never seen anything like it, so blatant, so obvious, so spiteful here. I've certainly heard it, but not ever seen it written in black Sharpie. Claramente, we have some Trump supporters within our midst. I'm still surprised no one has tried to take it down.
Jersey Ave. is a relatively busy street, it's one of the main avenues that runs through downtown. This mostly Spanish sign by StreetSmart asked for drivers to mind their velocidad on the road, promoting safety. Not only did the vandal cross out the Spanish calling for respecting the speed limits, but s/he also crossed out the name of the organization below it (which was in Inglés) and its catch-phrase "Toward Zero Deaths." Of all the signs to vandalize for its use of Spanish, s/he chose quite a random organization. Is s/he against speed limits too?
Los movimientos de "Solo Inglés" are relatively popular around the country, demanding that the government recognize English as the United States' official language (as if we needed to). The time wasted on wanting to establish a de facto technicality is almost humorous. Except for the racist part. The part where people in this country think their lengua is being erased or ignored. That English (and, by association, whiteness) is under some sort of attack. People think el gobierno needs to assert English as the official and primary language to preserve...what, exactly? Esta porquería existe, but I didn't think about it being here. Of course, it's not someone stepping up. It's someone anonymously vandalizing a public safety sign, but for what? To scare us? Échate pa' ya, coño.
Do you really need yet another avenue to oppress us? Because the linguistic challenges have always been there. People have been fired for speaking Español at work for years. In the 1985 case Gonzalez v. Colahan-Saunders, employers at the NYC-based artes de graficas company Colahan-Saunders fired an employee for speaking Spanish. One boss said, "You can't speak Puerto Rican. There's a rule against speaking Puerto Rican anywhere in the office even in the ladies' bathroom." Just a couple of years ago, an employee claimed he was suspended from his job at Whole Foods for speaking Spanish with a coworker.
To the vandal, I want to thank you. Gracias para reminding me of the insidious and ever-present racism within my community, en mi ciudad y afuera. Gracias para la oportunidad for everyone to see who's moving in. Or maybe they've been here the whole time. Either way, estoy agradecida. We need to be reminded that there's so much more work to do. It's not just a national issue of Trump supporters. Stop thinking it's an outside issue. It's your neighbors también. Don't turn a blind eye. Vamos a continuar la lucha contra el colonialismo lingüístico aquí.
