The undying love I have for my mother is one that I cannot describe easily, if you have been there long enough to know me you would understand it but to those who don't understand it, I will explain it quite simply my mother and me went through some stuff that is a little harder to explain than I can put into words. It is a story that took place long before I was born.
My mother immigrated from Mexico at the age of 18, my brother was 7 months old at the time and she came to the United States unable to read, speak or write English she did not understand one word of the language, but to her this was making the best decision she could, she wanted nothing more than to provide a better future for her children, but little did she know the journey that she would be embarking on to get to where she is today.
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For those of you who know me you know that my mothers and mine's relationship is one that was never on the best terms in fact we had an on disagreements for years. For me it was never understanding why so much was expected of me when I was nothing more than a minority not only this but I degraded even further because I am a woman, I thought to myself a girl in my day and age should not be expected to make a better future for herself, I was expected to drop out of high school after becoming pregnant and moving in with a man that I would marry and spend the rest of my life with.
But things were different I began school and oddly I enjoyed it, I loved it more than anything, at school I made friends easily, learning everyday new words of English at school, Spanish at home. Recently I saw this video online that spoke to me on so many levels. The video was by the famously known webpage Buzzfeed in it several workers of this page and company talked about what it was like to have parents that speak broken English.
Now let me explain a little more on this video in it the people talk about how it was like to have parents whose English was broken, many explained having memories about certain things that they had to encounter with their parents because them not being able to understand English properly their children had to be translators. They explained the way they felt and why they translated for them.
Let me tell you why this hit home a little well for one my parents are both immigrants who came here from Mexico and although my father was better able to understand and write English my mother wasn't, in this video they talk about this exact thing one girl remembering how she was doing bad in one of her classes and during her parent-teacher conferences she had to translate this to her mother. Another recalls how frustrated her mother felt with not being able to understand English, so much so that she came home one day and told her daughter " you don't understand" when she asked her mother what she meant she told her "I am stupid," as she tried to fight the tears back. Another talks about how she had trouble because she would ask her parents for help with homework and they wouldn't know how to help her. But ultimately they all made one point that stood out to me the most the fact that their parents had to work and take care of them that they couldn't find the time to learn English.
When I turned 18 and after many years of struggling my mother put her foot down and decided to make time to learn English. Of course she had to learn during her lunch breaks and whenever she was done putting me and my sister to bed and making sure we had finished our homework. You see my mother like the parents of the people in these videos found it hard to set time aside to learn a foreign language that her children understood all too well to her the most important things were taking care of her children and working 9-5 in order to help my father give us a better living. You see my mother had set her priorities in a way that didn't so much benefit her but it definitely benefited us.
This video hit home so much because I understand what it is like to have to translate for my mother to have to explain to her things that me as an at the time 7 year old girl did not understand. But regardless being her translator showed me how hard things can be for a person that does not understand English the problem is that not many people see that. I had many people ask me like the people in this video why my mother didn't take the time to learn English, or ask me if she was stupid. Of course this hurt I mean I myself became frustrated I hated being picked on for something I had not control over something like my mother’s inability to understand English. I recall one time feeling so frustrated that I lashed out her "Why can't you learn English and be normal like the other parents" I told her as rage flowed through me, after I said it I regretted it so much my mother did nothing but look me in the eyes then look down I knew I couldn't take it back. It wasn't until later that I understood why my mother never learned English.
I still have to sometimes translate for her but like the people in this video I do not find this to be a problem because I know for a fact that my mother would do anything to make sure that I get to where I need to be, she makes sure that I have the means to reach my dreams and the only thing I can do to give her back all the hard work she puts in for me is to translate.
Many would argue that they should not feel for my mother that it should be her responsibility to better her English, or something along the lines of "this is America we speak English here" this is one I have heard many times before. And to them I would say.
I am not telling you to learn a different language nor am I saying that because all you speak is English that you are bad all I simply ask is that you understand that not all people in this world have the luxury of time to learn a language that they are not accustomed to like yourself my mother has trouble speaking and talking to people that do not speak anything other than English so I ask for your patience understand that my mother is a hardworking woman that had to learn at an early age to work for what she wanted because nothing was easily handed to her.
