“This is Guatemala; Speak Spanish”
ByAs always, identities have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty).
I was at a party recently when I overheard this exchange:
Mature Latina: “Habla espanol?”
Gringa: “Un poco”
And then the Guatemalteca launched into a conversation in rapid-fire Spanish. She was accompanied by her daughter who interrupted her and they had this conversation:
Daughter: “Mom, she just said she only spoke a little Spanish…you know English so speak in English to her.”
Mature Latina: “When I’m in the United States, I speak English, but this is Guatemala and I’m going to speak Spanish.”
I smiled a little listening to the conversation, remembering hearing so often in the US people complain about Mexicans speaking Spanish. Mind you, it was often simply overhearing a conversation in Spanish that bothered them, or listening to a phone menu with options in Spanish that irked them. It wasn’t that often a Mexican would approach a caucasian and would address them directly in Spanish, and if it was, it was usually because they really needed help.
This was the first time in nearly two years in Latin America that I’d heard this actually said out loud. I chuckled, although the Gringa to whom it was addressed didn’t find it all that humorous. Of course it’s Guatemala, and of course the language is Spanish, and if you’re here for any length of time you should make an effort to speak the language. The same holds for foreign visitors to the US.
I know people get all out of joint about this, but it need not be a cultural pride issue, it’s just smart; your opportunities-personal and professional-are greatly expanded by speaking the local language. It’s not my frustrating experiences at the mechanic or the mercado that really make me want to perfect my Spanish, it’s the inability to communicate with businessmen or political leaders in the capital or new Guatemalan friends in their language that frustrates me. In contrast, a friend of mine who is somewhat of a hermit has been here for 25 years and said his spanish is still terrible and he doesn’t care, “I don’t really want to talk to anyone anyway”.
Most people I’ve met here are extremely tolerant of my bad Spanish, and are eager to help me or even attempt their own English to communicate. The women almost uniformly giggle or smile as I slaughter their language and humiliate myself attempting to get the point across. “Feliz Ano” vs “Feliz Año”? Both sound agreeable to me. In contrast, the guys are rarely amused, but they are patient.
What you don’t find here is that same desperate political correctness as you do in the US; all the forms here are in Spanish, all the rules and regulations are in Spanish, nobody is going to print you a drivers license application in 32 different languages (Kekchi perhaps) simply because some guy from Lichenstein wants everything printed in his language. If you can’t read Spanish and think your civil rights are being violated, you’re not going to get anywhere with your complaint here.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s as it should be. If the private sector wants to take the time and expense to offer multi-lingual services, they should, and perhaps it will accrue to their benefit. The public sector should operate on the basis that promoting the common good involves a common language. One of the reasons the US rose to such global dominance in the 20th century was a common language and religion which held the people together. We inherited this model from the British, who demonstrated amply in the preceding generations how a united people can extend an empire when they’re not struggling with vast cultural, language and religious issues at home. We’re both now learning the true costs of cultural relativism, the British having already lost their empire and the US working (unintentionally, perhaps), to rapidly dismantle.
Guatemala is still struggling with divisions between ethnicities, cultures and languages. There are obvious social castes at work as well. I’m grateful so many Guatemalans are tolerant of my poor linguistic abilities and often want to communicate in English but I’m glad to see someone say, “In this country we speak Spanish”, instead of “Oh, poor thing, we need to hire a translator so this person doesn’t have to learn the local language.”
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12 Comments
January 4th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
I totally agree. I know very little spanish, but frequently in my business I have customers that only speak spanish. Should they learn English if they are living here? Of course they should! But will I still use what little spanish I have to try to communicate? Of course. If you are a foreigner in any country the right thing to do is to make your best effort to learn the language. Why people here in the US get mad because they over-hear a conversation in another language while standing in line at Wal-Mart? I wish I knew. Generally speaking we as Americans are total hypocrites when it comes to this. If we travel to another country we expect someone to speak our language and to help us, yet we are not always so kind in return. These are generalizations of course… Although as my husband reminds me that I have a gringa face, it is nice as my spanish improves because no one ever expects me to understand what they are saying in Spanish. I'm confident this will soon work to my advantage!
January 4th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
I agree with this… I have no clue how so many teachers that I know here get around not knowing Spanish!
January 6th, 2010 at 3:06 am
It blows my mind how many extranos I meet here don't know *any* Spanish. Not even enough to order a simple meal. I recently had to translate everything a waiter said to a potential client at an upscale LAG hotel restaurant. Dude didn't even know what "postre" meant.
I'm not all that quick at learning languages, never have been. But I go to Spanish school 3 hours a day and you know, poco a poco. People who come to the US to live need to learn English too. It's a country made up of immigrants since the beginning, but we all eventually learned the national language. The one exception here of course are the Chinese who somehow created small colonies in every city and speak only Mandarin or Cantonese. I figure we let them do this because everyone like Chinese food so much.
January 6th, 2010 at 6:41 am
I'm confused. The gringa said she was going to speak Spanish (or listen to abuela's spanish) because she was in Guatemala or the abutelita insisted on speaking spanish? I think it is the latter, no?
And I totally agree. I'm about to start intensive Spanish (stop speaking English) to my husband because I'm sick of being the translator (since he refuses to go out on his own and try).
January 6th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Sharing your frustration, although I suspect that your Spanish kills my French. People are polite when you make the effort and I can get by doing normal routine things but not being able to actually converse only does me a disservice.
However I just returned from England and I'm not sure I would extol the virtues of their former empire so readily. Yes, obviously it's easier to run rampant across the globe when you create a homogenized culture but what of the toll? Everywhere I went in Northern England people pointed out the Catholic martyrs who were slaughtered during the Reformation, the occupied and formerly occupied nations bucked and strained against the Englification of their indigenous cultures– hell the IRA recently got back into the fray and this doesn't address the Muslin/Hindi/Christian conflicts which unraveled after Britain had finished their economic plunder of South Asia. Ghana may be one of the most stable African nations but Britain's efforts in Africa didn't always end so neatly, not to mention their former colonies in the West Indies. Watch and see what happens as China expands its dominance– I'm guessing for repeats of gore-drenched history.
Britain's decline is a complicated affair and I'm not going to speculate if the end results really justify the means. However unified their domestic front their steamrolling lacked any realization that people are different and cannot be pressed into a sausage grinder to become uniform. Diversity in England, from what I've seen, can only be a good thing. You'll get your insane Muslim Clerics just like you'll have your insane Christians, just like insane everything else. But it's a richer culture as a result and being open to this is really one small step of making up for everything that's come before.
Meanwhile I shall continue to practice French, drink English tea, make Japanese noodles and sneer at Sarkozy's politicized attempts to spark public discussion on French identity.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Kathy, sorry for the confusion, I corrected the post. The latina insisted on speaking Spanish.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Brendan, I didn't want to extol the virtues of imperialism so much as to simply observe that nations with a homogeneous population have an easier time projecting power. I happen not to be an imperialist, believing Washington was right about avoiding foreign entanglements.
However, I can't agree with the statement, 'diversity…can only be a good thing'. Those worshiping at the altar of diversity usually have their own ideology they wish to impose on others.
January 6th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
I think the old broad was very rude in the way she expressed herself. If this party was a business affair, her comment might be justified. In a social setting, however, where conversation and human interaction is the goal, her insistence on speaking Spanish, even though she spoke English, is a bit churlish, provincial and selfish. The whole purpose of being multi-lingual is to be able to communicate better with other people.
January 6th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Can't hang with diversity, eh? Well, to each his own…
January 7th, 2010 at 2:57 am
My tolerance of almost any opinion expressed in these comment sections should be a reflection of my ability to 'hang'!
January 7th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Well I'm glad you can hang with my cheap jokes.
January 8th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
I find that odd. I've never met a Guatemalan who knew but refused to speak English. On the contrary most people I meet here jump at the chance to practice their English although we could have a more fluid conversation in Spanish. When speaking with Guatemalans that speak English really well, I often switch back and forth between English and Spanish, or let the language choice differ to whoever has the strongest non-native ability. I imagine when chatting with el gordo, I'd be speaking English.