Lengua Franca

In the beginning, I spoke no language. I don’t mean that when I was born, I couldn’t speak—nobody can. Rather, I mean that when the time came when everybody expected I should say something, I didn’t. For months, people thought I was retarded, that all I’d ever do would be cry and mumble and cry some more when nobody understood. But I was a crafty little sucker. My mom and I figured a way to communicate with signs and nods and looks and grunts. She says that I showed enough curiosity and responded appropriately to stimuli, so she figured I was just going to take my time. She waited.

At a time when other parents would show their kids off when they said “mama” or “papa” or any of a myriad dumb monosyllabical repetitions of something they didn’t really understand, I stayed quiet. My mother didn’t begin to worry until I was almost potty trained, but said not a word.

Then, one day, I started talking in full sentences. I went to bed one night without a word and woke up in the morning and said something along the lines of “good morning, mom; what’s for breakfast?” She had the sense to say nothing more than “cereal and milk. Go sit at the table and I’ll bring it to you.” Later, she’d tell me how happy she was, but that morning, she told that little boy nothing for fear of embarrassing him into silence.

------------------------

In the middle, there was the war. I’m almost sick and tired of how all my stories have the war in them, but wars are pernicious, ubiquitous, insidious, intrusive things that tend to get all up in your business and wreak havoc with your social life, especially when you’re just old enough to join society on your own. Those were the days when I was supposed to “go out and play,” and many kids did. But my parents, being the revolutionaries that they were, were involved in all that clandestine shit democratically-inclined, socially-responsible people do when under a foreign-imposed dictatorship—so they feared for their kids. That meant limited “go out and play” time. We even had “people” (ain’t it funny how some people “have” people?) who drove us to and from school.

Those were boring days.

I spent nights teaching myself German from a book. Now, if you speak German, which I don’t, you’ll understand how funny it would sound if you never heard it before but tried to read it aloud from a book. Well, my dad told me to stop. He was pretty successful and well-liked, so a friend of his high up in government arranged for me to go to the University of East Berlin (was there only one? Why did we just call it “the” University of East Berlin?). This was after the war, and we weren’t hiding no mo’, no mo’…

Then they suggested, politely and sweetly, like people often offer when showing you the barrel and quietly unzipping, would I want to go to the University of Moscow instead? But I’d have to wear olive only. Too old to go unnoticed; too young to go into the army; I would join the army and go abroad. Untrustworthy people have a habit of not trusting anyone, so they take other people’s kids hostage to ensure loyalty. Hell, when you’ve killed enough people, you just don’t know who’ll want to kill you, so you take steps… and that sometimes means stepping on poor fools’ toes. I was that toe.

Two weeks later, I was in San Francisco.

------------------------

You’d think July would be a warm month, and it mostly is. But when you come from the tropics, just about anything north of South Beach is worthy of a light jacket. It was 50 degrees in San Francisco. I was freezing!

Whatever language you speak, you can find a karaoke bar somewhere in San Francisco playing your very own version of I Left My Heart (In San Francisco). If you’re lucky, they’ll even have imported beer, from your homeland. Cold!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Everybody Speaks Spanish in America—and if not, they should. Twenty years, my dad lived in the United States, and never needed English. Many people oppose this view thinking that they can legislate what people do with their tongues—and that works about as well as telling people what to do with what God put between their legs. Even—or rather, specially—in America, one cannot force someone else to speak a language that would be beneficial to all. I think everybody should speak English, but then I also think everybody should speak Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian. In the United States, you have the perfect right to be as much an inconvenience to everybody else as your tax dollars allow. Contrary to popular opinion, this is a good thing. Ultimately, the ramifications are far more positive than negative, in my humble opinion.

I never needed English, either. But I craved it. I hungered after it like it was a twisty doughnut right out of the oil, dripping in sugary goodness at four o’clock at the local Korean guy’s shop. It was like a cigarette after an eight-hour drive down the coast with my mom and my ex-wife. There is something far beyond the doughnut and the cigarette about each experience, and if you don’t know it, I won’t waste your time explaining it.

I learned English because I had no choice. It took three months. I have been madly in love with the language ever since. Only half-humorously, I’d dare say everybody should learn to make love with their tongue, and every tongue is different—if you catch my drift. I love oblique, multi-lingual humor caused by poor translations.

And I write in English, and my Spanish-speaking friends ask “why?” And I write in Spanish, and my English-speaking friends say “uh?” And when I can, I throw in one or two phrases from other languages I picked up. It is in the nature of English to be open, welcoming of other languages, ideas, the very essence of other languages. At a time when others fight to keep their “cultural” identity and “purity” of their language, it’s reassuring to see American English saying: “Bring me your tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free..."