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by Lila Donnolo

i'm torn/rejecting outfits offered me/regretting things i've worn
-Ani Difranco, "Pale Purple"

Bilingual people make me feel guilty. I read somewhere that in Sweden as well as many Asian countries schoolchildren are required to learn two languages at the very least, one of them English. I feel proud as a speaker of excellent English. This is in part because the United States is such a powerful entity (the "dominating world power"), but I don't want to think about that. However, when I spent time in Brazil with my Portuguese-speaking native mother, I was a gringa; my English forming gravel in the mouth, harsh and jarring against the smooth samba-based rhythms of Portuguese. I was the colonialist, the military colossus, the politicians and baby-kisser. I was the United States.

This feels deja vu. I have written this essay before. It got me into New York University. Then it was about finding a cultural niche during a four-week tourist vacation in Rio, Sao Paulo, and Bahia one summer. I postulated, "Up until the summer of 1998, the culture limb of my body sculpture was not yet carved. Rio took up the chisel, and Bahia the hammer. . . I . . .danced the samba. . .and gained a cultural identity." The power of the mind is overwhelming: I cannot distinguish whether I truly believed that I became Brazilian on that trip to my motherland or if I just thought such a "poignant" essay-where I come to the realization that I do not need to speak the language to be Brazilian-would get me into college.

My mother is trilingual; she speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and English fluently. She has this uncanny ability to recognize the rhythms of foreign languages (foreign. . . what an alienating word that is). "What language are they speaking, mommy?" became a common question whispered when walking down the street. At one point, she worked for the New York City court system as a translator. And I, I speak but English. Only English. Beautifully, but still. As I wrote in that fateful essay, "When I was two I knew more Portuguese than I know now." I picked up a few basic phrases when I visited-"where's the bathroom?" and "I like chicken"-but the only thing I've retained is how to introduce myself. Eu me chamo Lila. I blame most of this on my father. His line was "speak English to her."

My mother was teaching me to be bilingual-no trace of an accent, and my father's line was "speak English to her." He spoke Portuguese too, as fluently and with as little of an accent as a third generation Italian-American gringo can, so I can get no grasp on the psychology of this. But the mantra continued. "Speak English To Her." So my mother did. When she finally attempted to teach me again, I would become interested in little bursts and spurts (like pogo sticks or stilts) until the novelty wore off. I remember seven, sitting with my mother in the burgundy hammock in the backyard, learning two or three sentences and then. . . "I'm tired of this, can I go ride my bike now?!" I remember eleven and complaining, "It's just too hard, how could I ever learn a language so well that I can think in it?" (That is the definition, according to my mother, of knowing a language. You own it when you dream in it.) That area of my thinking on language freeze-framed at eleven. It still seems absolutely impossible that anyone (namely me) could really learn another language. My two years of high school Spanish taught me less than nothing about how to speak. Comments flung around me in Mexican restaurants still have no meaning. Another thing my mother says, "You cannot learn language in a classroom. The only way is by immersion in the culture."

I am jealous of Gloria Anzaldua. In the essay "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," she lists the languages she can speak. There are eight!: Standard English, Working class and slang English, Standard Spanish, Standard Mexican Spanish, North Mexican Spanish dialect, Chicano Spanish, Tex-Mex, and Pachuco. She has the ability to communicate with so many people. There is great nobility in being an interpreter (not necessarily as a profession, merely one who can interpret). She tells that she speaks each of these distinct languages with different people. This enables her to communicate with them in a tongue which is familiar. Yet Anzaldua's very bilingual-ness causes her to feel powerless! She is most comfortable when speaking Chicano Spanish because it is a language which was created from "the Chicanos' need to identify ourselves as a distinct people." Because Chicano Spanish blends Spanish and English (Spanglish), and because it is neither one nor the other (just like her identity), it is looked down upon by many speakers of "pure" English or Spanish. But we all know that people fear what they don't understand, and Anzaldua herself speaks of Chicano Spanish as a "secret language." It's like Pig Latin. . .as an eight year old, the world of ixnay on the eeriochay gave us a feeling that we were initiated into something very vital and definitive. O, that elite tribe that could decipher Pig Latin in the blink of an eye!

Anzaldua grew up being tugged by both arms. At school, speaking Spanish got her physically abused by the teacher. At home, she was accused of being an upstart, a "cultural traitor," a degradation of the purity of Spanish for speaking the language of the colonizer. Chicano Spanish is a language which allowed her to reclaim both of her arms. But she had to be exceedingly careful about who she spoke it to. . .even other Chicanas (particularly those from California) may not understand the dialect and Anzaldua must worry about "unintentionally embarrassing them." It becomes such a loaded spoken world. She has "internalized the belief that we speak poor Spanish. It is illegitimate, a bastard language." This is not hysterical ranting. I see this continually in the treatment of Black English, or "Ebonics" as it has been termed by the media.

Black English, generally only spoken by African-Americans, being a language made of large amounts of slang and non-standard phrasing (considered grammatically incorrect) such as "where you be at?" is labeled ghetto. A bastard language, a poor language, a language with less validity than standard English. June Jordan deals with these stigmas in "Nobody Mean More to Me than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan." Willie Jordan was an intelligent, sweet boy in her class "The Art of Black English," which aimed to legitimize Black English by reclaiming it for those who communicate in it and "learnin them how write it too." During the class, Willie's brother was murdered by white police officers, and the group decided on a collective course of action, first writing letters of condolence to the parents in Black English, and then letters to the police­was that to be written in Standard English ("the language of the killers") or Black English (the language of the slain)? They finally decided on Black English, endowing their effort with an immense nobility and legitimacy, at the exact same time as it "doomed [their] writings." They opted to keep their self-respect intact, to use the language which they speak, Reggie Jordan's language. They knew this would exclude it from any serious consideration by a predominantly Anglo police force and a similarly populated media. Newsday did not pick up the story. "Nobody Mean More to Me than You" is written in Standard English. June Jordan herself, decided to make this piece accessible to those other than the subjects of it. It would speak more directly to the black community if written in Black English.

Can we not say then, that Chicano Spanish as well as Black English foster free-flowing, comfortable communication among people who understand each other the better for it? Anzaldua states this in her way­ "Chicano Spanish is not incorrect, it is a living language." How then, can society deem it illegitimate? And how can she swallow that view? "Until I can accept as legitimate Chicano Texas Spanish, Tex-Mex, and all the other languages I speak, I cannot accept the legitimacy of myself. . .as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate." But if her self-legitimacy (could also be termed self-respect) depends upon the accommodation of her by others­then perhaps she will never feel validated. Sounds like middle school, when your self-worth depended upon what the popular label sporting eighth grade cheerleaders were saying (or not saying) about you. "Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate," she cannot feel legitimate, she writes. She isfree to write bilingually, without translation, just as Jordan is free to write in Black English. It is a choice. Those who want to read her work will accommodate (i.e. buy a Spanish/English dictionary or agree to not understand in parts) or they will not read it. She translates for us in "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," pandering to us or otherwise making herself subservient to a culture that will not learn Spanish in order to comprehend her writing, therefore by her own logic perpetuating her illegitimacy. Her pride is tentative. The title itself and the sentence in the last paragraph, "When other races have given up their tongue we've kept ours," suggest that she respects the sort of stoic strength, the root-like power of the Chicanos. But save a brief line relating her happiness when first reading poetry in Tex-Mex, and "the exhilaration I felt" when she heard Chicano music, it seems as though she has not yet found the pride or joy in it.

I don't know what box to check on standardized tests. I grew up checking Caucasian without a second thought. I never thought of myself as anything other than white. I always wanted to be able to check Hispanic, since my mother's from Brazil. But Brazil is no Hispanic country; it just happens to engulf a third of South America. One day my youth group leader, a mulatto woman, invited me to a gathering of "women of color." "But I'm not," I protested. She said "Girl, your mother's Brazilian and that's color enough." She invited my mother too, who dismissed this revelation. We are not women of color, she told me, the Brazilians we are descended from came from Romania and Russia. Which is to say, since they're light-skinned Europeans we are not people of color. Using this vein of reasoning, are we even Brazilians? Is my mother even a Brazilian? She's only, what, say third generation Brazilian? Is that enough time spent in the country to claim a heritage there. Of course, because she was born and raised and speaks the language, Danielle encouraged me to check the box marked "Other," and I do it, with almost guilty pleasure. But, I tell myself, I am Italian and Brazilian, and the Caucasian box does not define me. So I fight against the urge to erase the check mark and put it in a safer category.

He said, "Why can't you take pride in the fact that you're biracial?" And I smiled with sudden tears because "I've never heard that word applied to me before."

I have a friend named Jennie. She's from Hong Kong. The first day of classes we all marveled at what perfect English she speaks. She doesn't speak Chinese. She never had to. She went to an American school ("The American School") and was never forced to. She can identify with my language-guilt. Jennie is Asian. She just is, by nature of her delicately slanted eyes and creamy skin. No one would say she is something other. But Jennie's mother is British. She's biracial. Anyone looking at her would identify her as Asian (we like to group people continent wise), due to physical characteristics, bone structure. Anzaldua says "Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity­I am my language." What of Jennie then? She is denied her ethnicity due to her deficiency of language? What of me? Because, you see, here, visual identity is twin skin to linguistic identity. Nobody's going to look at me and say "that's a South American girl" or "that's a South American and European girl" for that matter (though they may say "that's an Italian girl.") I am porcelain-pale, so I get the white assumption. The other day, walking down Broadway, a group of African-American (I never claimed I was innocent of continent rubber banding) guys were trying to sell Yankees t-shirts for the Subway Series, and to get my attention, one of them called out to me. "Hey Vanilla," he said. "Hey Vanilla!"

I didn't want to admit that I was in the search for a label or definition. When Anzaldua is not defined, she feels lost. What would her Spanglish be without the word Chicana? Anzaldua says "Chicanos did not know we were a people until 1965 when. . .I am Joaquin was published and La Raza Unida party was formed in Texas." When she becomes defined however, she feels fenced in. I'm afraid of being the six year old who cries when her Barbie's leg is torn off and yet, when given a new one, tears the arm off and cries again. I have long wished for the privilege of a distinct cultural identity. For years I longed to be Native American, especially when we made kachina dolls in sixth grade. They are the proud displaced race, the rightful landowners, in tune with the earth, retaining ceremonial garb, passing down heritage through oral tradition­how connected I thought I would feel then! Of course, without that set of problems­the reservations, the alcoholism, the overwhelming feeling of being overlooked. I am naive because I want the niche without the consequences. "But can't I just have the yummy food and the dancing and the celebrations and the World Cup," I'm whining. Can't I just have the good stuff. I am American. What does that mean? The supposed "melting pot" ("this melting pot where nothing melts", Rabbi Chemelwitz says in Kushner's Angels in America) that is now considered a salad bowl? Ingredients tossed together willy nilly that may flavor each other a bit but will never mesh? Louis Ironson says in Angels, that "we are reaching out for a spiritual past in a country where no indigenous spirits exist­only the. . .Native American spirits and we killed them off so now. . .there are no angels in America, no spiritual past, no racial past. . . ." I am an American. It is undeniable. It is my most all encompassing label bar the human one. I come from a nation of pilferers. We have stolen songs, music groups, actors, words, food, and stories. English, this "mother of all languages," is a patois in itself, one pilfered from Great Britain and spiced with Spanish, French, Italian, Russian. I am not saying that I don't get teary-eyed when they play "Stars and Stripes Forever" and fly that flag. I am saying that part of me feels unseen or unrecognized by the name "American."

It was brought to my attention recently that I have been trying for years to connect with my inner Brazilian woman, without recognizing that I am neglecting the other half of my heritage. I don't have much to say about being Italian. It gives me my dark hair, a love of spaghetti sauce, and a hard time shaving. Italian, I suppose, seems too close to European, which seems too close to White to me. I admit: I have the need to ally myself with the oppressed rather than the oppressor. (The last time I wanted to be friends with the bully was eighth grade.) White is slaveowner, White is Ku Klux Klan, White is WASP-y. Being plain "white" (which nobody is of course, but just for the sake of argument), aside from being boring, makes me the target of reverse-racism and residual anger and bitterness towards ancestors that aren't even mine. Nobody deserves any kind of racial persecution, least of all for wrongs of people that have no connection to them save lineage. I probably think that I have an out when someone at the Nuyorican Poets Café slams about slavery and the white man. My heritage enables me to remove myself a few degrees and inner monologue­to appease my guilt­"well that's not me." Brazil is exotic to me. Brazil is Carnival, bronzed women in t-backs, soccer with volleyball nets, the girl from Ipanema. (Brazil is also cardboard boxes, a higher crime rate than Chicago, dirty water, and inflation. But in terms of culture, only the beauty seems to have steeped in my brain.)

Again, I envy Anzaldua. . .the woman knows too many languages, her cultural identity is a specific blending of two very distinct cultures. She can define herself as part of a snug niche and there are others that define themselves as such. I am not saying her worries are invalid. It's never fun to sit on any kind of fence. . .there's always something poking you in the ass. I truly only heard myself referred to as biracial for the first time in my existence a few weeks ago. I honestly had no idea that word applied to me, like I had no right to it because I'm not "ethnic enough" or something. Suddenly my behind didn't seem so sore. My immediate connotations were negative. . .biracial like mixed in chemistry, like not fully whole, cleaved, bi like sexually promiscuous, bi like two separate entities, like the Scarecrow with "some of me over here and some of me over there." But then biracial like identified, bi like identity. The word still tastes funny in my mouth, like orange juice when you've just brushed your teeth, but I'm absorbing it gradually. Maybe just the b-first. Biracial is a label that doesn't fence you in, doesn't claim to define your whole being. It's a very unassuming label. I don't like wearing Calvin Klein but I like wearing this.

"Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself," says Anzaldua. I do not always feel pride in my language, and English certainly does not sum me. I am biracial. (I have not said those words out loud yet­I am still absorbing, syllable by syllable.) I could never tell if the word mulatto was a racial slur or not. I have always considered it to be exclusively a mix between black and white. I still don't understand where it comes from. Mulatto like mutilated, like mixed, like grotto, latte, mold? I am trying to think of a word that means Brazilian and Italian. I am trying to etymologize myself. I am trying to define. I am trying to find the language for it, the patois, the blending. I am trying to figure out if biracial (biracial like beauty, like racing, like facial). . . is enough.

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue." Encounters: Essays for Exploration and Inquiry. Ed. Pat C. Hoy II and Robert DiYanni. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw, 2000. 93-101.

Jordan, June. "Nobody Mean More to Me than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan." The Writer's Presence: A Pool of Essays. Ed. Donald McQuade and Robert Atwan. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin's, 1994. 591-503.

Kushner, Tony. "Angels in America." The Harcourt Brace Anthology of Drama. Ed. W.B. Worthen. 3rd ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt, 2000.

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