I’m not going to be modest. My Spanish is pretty damn good these days. I can banter about culture, life, feelings, frustrations, and most importantly, politics. I can swear at any man that tries to make a pass at me- scaring the poop out of him and drawing strangers’ admiring glances. I can tell people I care about and love what I feel in a sentimental and sometimes tearful way. During meetings at work when I think things are going haywire, I can express just that in a semi-diplomatic way. At the post office, when yahoos aren’t obeying my American Rules of Order and nonchalantly cutting in front of me in line I can tell them to get their ass behind me, I was here first, por favor. I know plenty of slang to earn the respect from the teenage boys I teach English to, and enough polite formalities to usted and sí, señora my way into the more formal circles. When I went back to the U.S. on a short visit, my parents dragged me to Don Ramon, their favorite Mexican restaurant, and paraded me about to the “real Mexicans”, showing me off as their daughter that lives in Central Mexico. My slick skills got us free coffee and unnecessarily extra-large slices of key lime cheesecake. Now every time Sally and David go there, they are treated like quasi-royalty and spoken to in a long string of Spanish, to which they laugh and nod their heads, smiling, not knowing a single word that is said. These are my mad skills at work, people.
But don’t let my ego fool you. I am no native speaker and I can’t even bring myself to write “fluent in Spanish” on my resume. First of all, I don’t understand, or even speak Spanish. What I’m speaking is Mexican. And Mexican is a language all to its own. It is chock full of rotating and regional slang, innuendos and a sing-songy speed that leaves me dizzy after a few hours of it. It has its very own vocabulary in which 90% of the words begin with “ch.” I have nightmares of returning to the U.S., working at an organization where I’m speaking Spanish constantly with Mexican immigrants and then a Puerto Rican walks in the door. He drops his “s” and sounds strikingly like Daddy Yankee. I panic as he rattles to me in his Caribbean dialect and I think, “what the hell kind of language is he speaking?”
I’ll respond casually, “Oye, guey. ¿Qué pinche idioma estás hablando? ¿A poco? ¿Español? No manches, guey, no te puedo entender para nada. Vete a la chingada chavo y encuentra a alguien que hable lo que tú hablas, men. Aquí estoy chambeando y no te puedo echar la mano. Solo hablo dos idiomas: Mexicano y Gringo.”
However, after a year of living in Mexico and with about 70% of my life functioning in Spanish, there are still times when I ask someone to repeat themselves so many times I swear they want to walk away from me. I can’t understand the Northern accent of my neighbor to save my life, and she smiles coyly as I exasperatedly look to others for a little translation. She shouts the random words of English that she knows at me in a slow and thickly accented tone, forgetting that I had been speaking a long Spanish monologue just 2 minutes before. The truth is, for all my occasional arrogance, I still get a little nervous every time I go to a Mexican family function. And while I can discuss the post-feminism influences on upper-class educational systems in Central Mexico, I still am thrown off guard when a waiter asks to take my order at a restaurant.
One day while walking with a co-worker through a dusty rural pueblo we passed the quintessential group of non-neutered, stray dogs. I recalled a lesson I learned in rural Guatemala, when I was attending a Spanish school in a remote part of the country. The director of the school warned us of the aggressive dogs in the street and advised us carefully as to what to do when a dog looking for a fight crossed our path.
“You have to get really big,” he said in his clear and slow Guatemalan Spanish. “Puff your chest out like this and your arms like this,” he exhibited as he tried his best to make his 5’2” frame double in size. “And when the dog gets too close yell, ‘CHUCHO!!’”
We all followed in unison in the in the tropical heat of the Guatemalan lowland. “CHUCHO!!” we screamed, using our most aggressive body language, sweat budding from our brows.
So, here in Central Mexico, I thought it would apply the same. One of the dogs barked and I yelled, “CHUCO!! CHUCHO!!” My co-worker’s eyes widened and a look of fear, bewilderment and hilarity glazed over her face. She didn’t join me in unison.
She began to laugh wildly.
“What?” I questioned.
“What are you saying?” she laughed.
“Isn’t that ‘bad dog’ or something like that?” I answered, not even reflecting on the fact I never learned what the actual word meant.
“It...” she spit out through the uncontrolled laughter, “… is a nickname…” she continued hysterically, “…for ‘Jesus’”
“Like Jesus Christ?” I asked innocently. This sent her further into hysterics. Turns out the answer was “no.” Just for the guys named Jesus (pronounced Hay-Sues)
Later all of my co-workers were informed of this and every time they saw a dog they would hysterically laugh, “chucho!” Or I would sometimes try to squeeze a laugh out of them by pretending to pray, asking “Chucho” to forgive me for my sins. Same language- it just didn’t translate. I’m speaking Mexican now.
The store downstairs from my apartment is my lifeline, both for many things that I purchase (such necessities as water, bread, and Nutella) and socially. I can usually find Lupita there, a strong, young Mexican woman that chit-chats with me in the afternoons. One particular afternoon I went there and she was exceptionally busy with customers. Between juggling four customers’ orders she asked me in front of everyone, “Oye, Rachel, tu novio por casualidad se llama Rodrigo?” (Hey, Rachel, is your casual boyfriend named Rodrigo?) I looked at her skeptically. I had flashes of the “spring breaker” image that Americans have in these parts. I thought it was clear that I wasn’t out vying to win my $500 at a wet t-shirt contest or doing body shots of tequila until 6am.
I sweetly, but defensively, responded to not only her, but everyone else in the store, “Lupe, no. No tengo un novio por casualidad. Tengo un novio SERIO.” (Lupe, no. I don’t have a casual boyfriend. I have a SERIOUS one.) She looked at me confused.
Laughter. The whole store howled. I was utterly confused.
“No. Rachel. Tu novio,” (No. Rachel. Your boyfriend,) she paused to give the effect of a comma, “por casualidad,” (randomly,) another pause-equals-comma moment, “se llama Rodrigo?” (is he named Rodrigo?)
“Oh!” I understood. “No! No, es su nombre.”
Finally, and most recently, I went to one of Puebla’s few parks, with actual trees, to go running. Now, many Mexicans treat dressing up to go to the park or gym like we Americans do for say, a wedding. They have the matching, brand name track suit. Their hip sunglasses in place. Their sneakers looking like they just bought them yesterday- not a trace of dirt. I am not like that. I, like my fellow post-college co-eds, throw on some free t-shirt I got for registering for a campus event, some unattractive old sweatpants that routinely make their way up the crack of your butt (thus burning more calories as you yank it out of your ass crack every quarter mile) and my muddy-ish running shoes (mine happen to look quite orthopedic as I have a terrible roll when I run). After a gasping and grueling 3 mile run (I’m almost 7000 feet above sea level, damn it, and once ran two marathons! Times are tough- I’ll get in better shape back in the States), I decided to visit a friend's parents’ house to raid the kitchen. Lunch turned into, internet, internet into cable TV and finally at about 8 o’clock at night I was leaving.
As his mother, Patricia, was saying her good-byes she jokingly said out loud to everyone, “Look at what Rachel is wearing. She could go stand on the corner and make some money.”
I was shocked. This was the woman that has scolded me for not dressing femininely enough and suggested I try more heels and more make-up (“You wear pearls, for god’s sake,” exclaimed my friend Rita when I told her this news). I eyed her 8x10” photo of Pope John Paul II that graces her entry. Did she really think that I looked like a hooker? The Pope stared down at me in my sweat pant cut-offs and muddy sneakers. I was sunburned, my hair was greasy and I was in dire need of a shower, after not having bathed post-run. It was safe to say that I wasn’t going to be turning any tricks, at least successfully, in this get-up.
“You think I look like a hooker?” I asked with astonishment.
They all roared with laughter. I looked at them bewildered.
“No, Rachel,” my friend explained, “You look like a street beggar in your outfit.”
Oh. Even better.
The point is, whether we’re talking about nicknames for guys named Jesus, spring breakers in Cancun or me working what the good Lord gave me for a few extra pesos, so much of language is cultural. I can ask, inquire, immerse myself, but our cultures breed language. Our culture breeds communication. After 26 years of English, I am still barely mastering my own language. In fact, dare I say, I don’t even speak English, but really American? And now I’m finally learning the basics of not Spanish, but Mexican.
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