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DesertRat

(27,995 posts)
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 01:03 AM Jul 2019

Julian Castro can't speak Spanish. Here's why that's so authentic. (WaPo)


Julián Castro, the Mexican American former mayor of San Antonio, a city with a large Latino population, only knows English. Commentators and political opponents alike have hardly let him forget it.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) brought up the presidential candidate’s lack of Spanish in a racist tweet in October, saying Castro and his twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro, had to take Spanish lessons to “qualify as retroactive Hispanics.” In 2016, when Castro, who is also a former secretary of housing and urban development, was rumored to be a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton, pundits questioned his Latino bona fides. The subject reared itself again after last month’s Democratic debates, what with Castro not being able to show up Booker and O’Rourke. Castro’s shaky closing remarks, in which he used the wrong preposition in Spanish, got him dinged.

During a recent interview, Castro revealed more about his family’s history with Spanish. “In my grandparents’ time, in my mom’s time, Spanish was looked down upon,” he said. “You were punished in school if you spoke Spanish. You were not allowed to speak it.” He said many Latinos have “internalized this oppression” and desired their children to only speak English.

It’s true in my own family. My abuelos, first-generation Mexican Americans, lived in southern Texas and struggled with English. My grandmother dropped out of elementary school because of how difficult it was to speak the language, let alone fully assimilate. My grandfather eventually became the first in his family to go to college, and when the two had children, they decided, either consciously or as a matter of unspoken practicality, to raise them with just English.

Picking up the language later on, as I tried to do, is hard. When you live in an environment where Spanish is either considered dead weight or a sign of cultural invasion from an undesired people, speaking it can be punished, as Castro mentioned. When I tried practicing in high school with my Latino friends, a teacher scolded me: “This is America. We speak English.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/09/julin-castro-cant-speak-spanish-heres-why-thats-so-authentic/?utm_term=.14d747cb5764
If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
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Julian Castro can't speak Spanish. Here's why that's so authentic. (WaPo) (Original Post) DesertRat Jul 2019 OP
same with my family LittleGirl Jul 2019 #1
Was going to say. Italian-American here. Same with my friends even when both parents spoke emmaverybo Jul 2019 #2
My dad's twin LittleGirl Jul 2019 #3
Ah! My journey so far is genealogical, some of it local. Sorry for your too early loss of your emmaverybo Jul 2019 #4
Thank you. LittleGirl Jul 2019 #5
Why don't you write a book. Blue_true Jul 2019 #19
I've had some medical issues that LittleGirl Jul 2019 #20
If you have siblings of your grandparents that survived longer, you maybe Blue_true Jul 2019 #21
Thanks for LittleGirl Jul 2019 #23
Good luck. Looks like you have interesting things to write. nt Blue_true Jul 2019 #25
Yeah, I don't think Castro has a thing to be ashamed about on the PatrickforO Jul 2019 #6
My father told us "when you're in my house you speak demosincebirth Jul 2019 #7
Something similar in my husband's family. His grandmother spoke to the children in her native tongue pnwmom Jul 2019 #8
My husbands father was from Germany marlakay Jul 2019 #9
The very German Trumps told everyone they were Swedish for the same reason IronLionZion Jul 2019 #11
His grandfather snuck him marlakay Jul 2019 #12
The Steve King types want to deport Latinos for speaking Spanish IronLionZion Jul 2019 #10
Any DUer questioning your loyalties Turin_C3PO Jul 2019 #16
In my St. Paul neighborhood, there are many multi-generational MineralMan Jul 2019 #13
This has been my experience as well DesertRat Jul 2019 #14
Being functionally, if not fluently, multi-lingual is a wonderful asset. MarcA Jul 2019 #15
True, and that's often why affluent families hire a bilingual nanny DesertRat Jul 2019 #18
Same with my family Retrograde Jul 2019 #17
Similar here.... whistler162 Jul 2019 #22
Doesn't explain why he hasn't learned it. When I took Spanish Hortensis Jul 2019 #24
My Sicilian grandparents didn't let their 9 kids learn Italian, because they wanted them tblue37 Jul 2019 #26
That experience customerserviceguy Jul 2019 #27
I don't care what Rep. "KKK" King thinks. If Julian was proficient in Spanish, King would NCjack Jul 2019 #28
Agreed. nt DesertRat Jul 2019 #30
Same with my family, but the language was French (Canada). Back then, my father, Nay Jul 2019 #29
 

LittleGirl

(8,261 posts)
1. same with my family
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 01:09 AM
Jul 2019

my grandparents came from Italy and raised their kids to speak Italian at home and English outside. Once they started school, both my father and his twin sister had to learn English and that was what they insisted that we speak to them. We wanted to learn Italian but those from the old country didn't want us to.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

emmaverybo

(8,144 posts)
2. Was going to say. Italian-American here. Same with my friends even when both parents spoke
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 01:15 AM
Jul 2019

Italian. When I wanted to pierce my ears at about 14 my mother told me I was foreign enough looking already. It took her many years to embrace her Italian heritage.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

LittleGirl

(8,261 posts)
3. My dad's twin
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 01:20 AM
Jul 2019

actually told me she was ashamed to be Italian. She said that nobody in her school wanted to date a "wop." After visiting Italy and seeing the beautiful country and the people there, some still relatives, I was just flabbergasted. But I didn't grow up in their time so don't know what kind of discrimination they suffered either. My dad died of heart failure in 1975 so he's been gone so long and I wasn't old enough to ask him about those things as I was only 15 at the time. I'll be celebrating my 60th birthday in Italy in October and can't wait.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

emmaverybo

(8,144 posts)
4. Ah! My journey so far is genealogical, some of it local. Sorry for your too early loss of your
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 01:24 AM
Jul 2019

father. I was lucky to have my mother a very long time. Enjoy the old country! What a birthday that will be.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

LittleGirl

(8,261 posts)
5. Thank you.
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 01:31 AM
Jul 2019

We have about 100 descendants from a village in Italy that immigrated to the Midwest. I organized a trip to Italy in 2006 and 23 other members of the tribe came. We had a blast. We ended up in the village of our ancestors and met some relatives that I'm still in touch with. They've adopted me and it's amazing. I'm going to write a story about it one of these days. If you can go, go! Unforgettable Italy.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

Blue_true

(31,261 posts)
19. Why don't you write a book.
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 09:50 PM
Jul 2019

Your experience is what a lot of people from immigrant families experience, regardless of where they came from, in particular if larger society has a program of discrimination against them (though not remotely as bad as what Blacks faced, Italians and Irish, Greeks, ect, faced job, housing and schooling discrimination from the dominant wasp culture, that is why now it is sad to see decendants embracing the same type of hate). You can have as the basis of your book the common experiences that all immigrants who are not from "preferred" regions of the world face and you can relate those experiences to what is happening today and what you believe a "perfect" world would look like. Just an idea.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

LittleGirl

(8,261 posts)
20. I've had some medical issues that
Sat Jul 13, 2019, 02:34 AM
Jul 2019

have taken my attention level to another dimension but I'm on the right track. And, I've been living in Switzerland so that adjustment is also another reason. We're all settled in now so I'm going to do exactly what you just wrote as a basis of my book. I have to "make up" tales of their lives because I don't really know how it went for them. I just remember a few things here and there from what they told us. And my grandparents died while I was much much younger along with my dad. My mother wasn't Italian. She's a descendant of Irish immigrants that ended up in the south so she was very poor. But I'm getting my head around the story so I will honestly use your suggestion to help me focus. Thanks so much for your suggestions as they are quite valid to the direction that I wanted to take the story. Hugs. xx

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
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Blue_true

(31,261 posts)
21. If you have siblings of your grandparents that survived longer, you maybe
Sat Jul 13, 2019, 04:38 PM
Jul 2019

can use their life experiences as a mirror into what your grandparents' lives may have been like.

As long as you title your book as fiction, there is no issue with you recreating storylines that work toward a larger point that you want to shed light on.

Several people here on DU have tried their hand at writing. I have written two novellas and four short stories. Different writers have their observations, my biggest problem was overcoming writer's block, surprisingly I found that writing my work in freehand in a notebook allowed me to just spin through words and storylines, before I figured that out, I could not write two paragraphs without a struggle.

Another thing that I found useful is to sketch out the characters that I eventually write about. You don't have to be exact on the sketch because a character can change once you start writing, one character that I originally sketched as a longterm victim that finally had enough ended being an outright badassed rebel who immediately fought against incarnate evil once she realized what had happened to her child.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

LittleGirl

(8,261 posts)
23. Thanks for
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 01:04 AM
Jul 2019

the encouragement. It's helpful to me. I really appreciate it. I think once I get my medication all set (oh boy isn't that fun) I will do what you say. I've got an outline of the stories so I can start one short story and build from there. xx

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

Blue_true

(31,261 posts)
25. Good luck. Looks like you have interesting things to write. nt
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 02:17 PM
Jul 2019
If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

PatrickforO

(14,516 posts)
6. Yeah, I don't think Castro has a thing to be ashamed about on the
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 02:10 AM
Jul 2019

bilingual front. Lots of people I know had this same kind of upbringing - and it isn't just Spanish speaking families, but other languages too.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

demosincebirth

(12,518 posts)
7. My father told us "when you're in my house you speak
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 02:51 AM
Jul 2019

Spanish.” Today I thank him for that. This was seventy years ago.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

pnwmom

(108,925 posts)
8. Something similar in my husband's family. His grandmother spoke to the children in her native tongue
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 03:02 AM
Jul 2019

and the grandchildren answered her in English.

And everyone was comfortable with that.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

marlakay

(11,370 posts)
9. My husbands father was from Germany
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 04:03 AM
Jul 2019

He thought when he took German his dad would help him. No. Never. Because of what happened in the war he was ashamed back then to speak it.

Mike knows some from school but not as much as he could have if his dad would have talked to him in German.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Undecided
 

IronLionZion

(45,268 posts)
11. The very German Trumps told everyone they were Swedish for the same reason
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 07:47 AM
Jul 2019

even changing their name from Drumpf to Trump. We had an elderly German immigrant fellow in my hometown named Adolph (before WWII). He decided not to change his name for some reason.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

marlakay

(11,370 posts)
12. His grandfather snuck him
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 09:09 AM
Jul 2019

Over when he saw what was happening with Hitler. He was in the military and didn't want his son involved. Mikes dad got a personal letter from Hitler saying come back and fight for the homeland. He only got that because his father was a officer. Mike said his older brother told him he threw the letter in the fire.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Undecided
 

IronLionZion

(45,268 posts)
10. The Steve King types want to deport Latinos for speaking Spanish
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 07:31 AM
Jul 2019

they will always say that someone is too much of a minority or not enough, but never let people just be who they are.

For me, I've always been treated like an H-1B despite being born and raised in America, US citizen, who only speaks English and is obviously 100% American if you ask anyone from India. Even DUers have told me that my loyalties are to India and I'm stealing jobs from real Americans, the white kind. Most white Americans can't even begin to understand how important it is for me to see the brown children of immigrants running for president after being told my entire life that there is only one type of American, the white kind. Brown people are perpetual foreigners in our own country.

Growing up, my grandparents and parents would speak to me in our language, and I would respond in English. It's a perpetual struggle with my family telling me I'm some sort of traitor to my brown Indian people, while racists keep telling me to "go back to India". The myth that Americans are white is one of the few things immigrant families and white supremacists can agree on.

For the record, Bernie Sanders is a child of European immigrants but no one talks about it because of his skin color.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

Turin_C3PO

(13,650 posts)
16. Any DUer questioning your loyalties
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 05:34 PM
Jul 2019

and accusing you of stealing jobs should be banned. That’s seriously bigoted behavior.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

MineralMan

(146,192 posts)
13. In my St. Paul neighborhood, there are many multi-generational
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 10:32 AM
Jul 2019

Hmong families. Almost universally, the older people who came here as refugees struggle with English and speak Hmong almost exclusively. Their children, now adults, are bilingual, and speak English with some remnants of Hmong grammar and syntax. The next generation, the third generation who are children, speak unaccented English and struggle with the Hmong language, which they use mostly to speak to their grandparents.

I think that is typical of most immigrant communities. It was true of Spanish in my home town which was 1/3 Hispanic. Almost all of the children I grew up with in the 1950s who had Hispanic backgrounds spoke both Spanish and English, but were mostly the third generation, and spoke English primarily, using Spanish in their households to speak with the elders.

I grew up alongside those kids, and learned Spanish almost by osmosis. I often visited my friends' homes and spoke Spanish to their grandparents and parents, much like my friends did.

I suspect that the Castros came from a family that insisted that English be used as a tool of assimilation. I knew some children who were raised that way by their third generation parents. Spanish was not used in their homes, and no Spanish-only-speaking elders lived in those homes any longer.

There are many advantages to growing up in a bilingual household, but by the fourth generation after the initial immigration, the old language is often no longer in use at home.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

DesertRat

(27,995 posts)
14. This has been my experience as well
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 04:04 PM
Jul 2019

From my experience living and teaching elem. school in a southern border state all of my life, the trend is that the first generation prefers to speak Spanish, the second generation is bilingual, and the third generation is generally monolingual.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

MarcA

(2,195 posts)
15. Being functionally, if not fluently, multi-lingual is a wonderful asset.
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 05:31 PM
Jul 2019

It can be such an advantage socially and vocationally. As an old saying
goes; a person who speaks two languages is bi-lingual, one who speaks
more than two languages is multi-lingual and a person who speaks only
one language is American.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

DesertRat

(27,995 posts)
18. True, and that's often why affluent families hire a bilingual nanny
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 07:06 PM
Jul 2019

and/or enroll their young children bi-lingual schools.

But many immigrant families don't especially prize running a bilingual house. Many 1st generation immigrants were punished for not speaking English, so they never taught their children anything other than English who in turn, couldn't teach their children their family's native language.

I've known many 3rd generation Mexican-Americans here in AZ who, like Julian Castro, have Spanish names and are shamed for not know the knowing the language. Many of them are sad that they only know an English accented "Spanglish".

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

Retrograde

(10,073 posts)
17. Same with my family
Fri Jul 12, 2019, 06:47 PM
Jul 2019

My grandparents all spoke Polish as their first language. My mother could speak it (and spoke English with a slight accent), but my father had a more Americanized upbringing. It was still widely spoken in the neighborhood where I grew up, but mostly by older people. I can pronounce it, and can read out loud without knowing what I'm reading, and know a few common phrases. My younger cousins can't speak it at all.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Undecided
 

whistler162

(11,155 posts)
22. Similar here....
Sat Jul 13, 2019, 08:37 PM
Jul 2019

Grandfathers came to this country in the late 1910's and early 1920's couldn't speak English. Grandmothers where first generation Americans who also spoke Swedish. My mom's brother didn't speak English as a primary language until Kindergarten, ended up as a English teacher in a school district. My mom born 7 years later speaks little to no Swedish. My dad, I am not sure how much he spoke, his sister speaks it but that may just be because she wanted to learn it. My brothers and I none at all. it is part of the American way of merging culture's, yeah I know but the merging comes and goes.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
24. Doesn't explain why he hasn't learned it. When I took Spanish
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 04:27 AM
Jul 2019

in college, it was a tough class because it was full of kids who were not allowed to speak Spanish but grew up with their elders chatting away in it to each other.

I'm re-reading Tip O'Neill's autobiography, and it was the same among the Irish of his childhood. They spoke Gaelic but wouldn't let their children.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

tblue37

(64,982 posts)
26. My Sicilian grandparents didn't let their 9 kids learn Italian, because they wanted them
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 02:29 PM
Jul 2019

to be fully assimilated --and also to speak English without an accent.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

customerserviceguy

(25,183 posts)
27. That experience
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 03:01 PM
Jul 2019

was repeated with generations of immigrants. The newly-arrived wanted their children to fit into American society.

When I see Latino people in public, such as the supermarket, they're almost all speaking Spanish to their children. I guess they expect the schools to do the work of making the next generation fit in.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

NCjack

(10,279 posts)
28. I don't care what Rep. "KKK" King thinks. If Julian was proficient in Spanish, King would
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 03:03 PM
Jul 2019

criticize him for it. Difficult to believe that King would want Julian to be perfectly bilingual.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
 

Nay

(12,051 posts)
29. Same with my family, but the language was French (Canada). Back then, my father,
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 03:48 PM
Jul 2019

who was typical in the day (the 50's) in that he thought he knew everything and everyone else was pretty much a dummy, or a girl.

My mom was Quebecoise and told me when I was an adult that dad shut down her effort in speaking French to us, because it was a well-known fact that that confuses children and they end up being messed up. Of course he was full of shit, but he ran the house.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Undecided
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