So say your first and
last name, Joshua Amparan,
do you speak? Not well.
I can understand it a lot more than
I can speak it. Michelle Mireles.
Common thing you hear when you say.
Why you should? Everyone says
that you should. Yeah he
gonna. I'm used to it now.
It doesn't bother me but you know
for a long time I wondered why.
Wasn't I taught Spanish?
I will say a lot of the people
that I grew up with had similar
upbringings where their parents
were more fluent in Spanish.
I think there's more people 'cause
they said I was gonna say tackling
that I don't know. Thomas, I know.
Happy birthday homie. Espanol
since I was in the military you
know my wife and I traveled a lot
and so our children moved a lot and
they were educated and Department
of Defense schools and so they never
really had a chance to practice
their Spanish except with us at home,
people would automatically go up
to my daughter who's just as dark
skinned as I am and start speaking
Spanish to her and then get after
her for not speaking Spanish.
You know. And she'd say that.
You know these people are actually getting
some of them almost violent with me.
So here in in San Antonio, in South Texas.
Language has been at the very center
of a number of discrimina Tori.
Policies and actions at the center of the
disinvestment in different communities.
You know, and so we kind of
have to begin really early on.
So for most of the 19th century,
Spanish was meant to be on and on
a equitable plane with English,
at least on the books. But that's
not how it played out in every day.
During that time there was
signs all over the school.
Bathrooms, doors, everything.
Say it in English.
I still remember was a white
sign with red lettering,
but what bothered me the most was.
The fact that it kind of turned US
against each other and those English
only mandates are what colored most of
ethnic Mexican experiences in education
and primary school education throughout
the first half of the 20th century.
So even though Mexican students can
now go to schools with white folks.
They still can't speak Spanish in school,
and oftentimes students who speak
Spanish in school or are are
punished in any number of ways.
In school I remember also speaking it or just
turning around to say 1 something
in Spanish and then earned it
go to the office they would.
Hit you with a paddle.
I recall hearing that they
would have to pay a penny every time they
were caught saying something in Spanish
or they would get paddled. Also and the
kids start picking at me because they
want a you know you don't speak Spanish.
I go no, I understand about speak
it but who the heck do you think you
are white and on the playground?
I said something and I don't
recall what it was.
It wasn't that it wasn't
nothing derogatory but.
I say something and somebody gets a teacher,
so you're not supposed to speak
Spanish and I go, so I'm just
trying to learn what are you talking
about that really stigmatized me.
It really did 'cause I was punished,
I was paddled and all that and you know,
I think to myself,
I I want to learn English yeah
but I went we went through a lot.
It lasted all through elementary
school and I don't remember
when they changed it.
But I think we were in
junior high before those.
Signs started coming down.
I'm absolutely shocked.
Every time I hear it because I know
from my perspective as a black person.
Oh yeah, we experience racism,
but for anybody else. I'm uh,
I'm absolutely shocked when I hear it.
Remember these a lot of these
parents went through this very
same school system, right and?
And So what begins to happen by the
50s is that there are, you know.
10s of thousands if not hundreds of
thousands of folks who are no longer.
Learning Spanish at home.
Or are actively being repressed
from speaking Spanish out in the
streets while Mom
attended Edgewood Elementary?
Uh, and she says she recalls
clearly being a third grade and
still struggling with her English.
So then when we came around
when she had her children,
she promised that we're going to be
English only because that was the
language that she felt we needed to learn.
Mom would just tell me that.
It just came down to school.
You know, being in school being
treated different because you
spoke the language and just to
protect us from all of that,
they just decided,
you know, just strictly
English. You know, I think just the
fact that I know that they were trying
to mold us by forcing us to to learn
English so that we could be a simulated,
you know, into the mainstream.
I know the intentions, you know were good,
but the manner in which it was done.
And the results I never felt were good.
The result is that now,
if if we're looking at 2021,
there are generations of of Latinos who
don't speak Spanish as a result of this
deep history of language suppression.
In today's society there's whole schools
that are dedicated to dual language.
You know? How ironic is that?
You know, it's explained by this history.
You know, we're still looking at a really
large population of students who just.
Plane lost Spanish.
The tensions within.
Different communities in
this particular case,
Mexican American Mexican
communities around Spanish,
and whether one speaks Spanish or
doesn't speak Spanish oftentimes
don't come from a place of.
Of really.
Great historical knowledge,
but there are generations of
folks who lost it because of the
systematic racism and the systematic
suppression of the Spanish language.
My kids personally, you
know I want them to know Spanish.
My twins take Spanish classes to
try to get to to speak
Spanish. My older son is
actually probably more fluent in
Spanish than I am, and I know now
my father tries to talk to him
almost exclusively in Spanish.
I think it's important that
we recover, at least in some way,
that language that was stolen from us,
or that was, you know,
if stolen is too harsh of a term.
For some people, that language that
was denied us in some way. Right?
So, so that's an important part of justice.
Identifying who you are,
especially in a place like like Texas,
which is. I'm bilingual,
you know capital in this country.