Cover letter:

When I began writing my story about the conversation between my mom and my brother’s school, I honestly did not know whom to direct this story to. I questioned myself for a long time about who would be able to relate or understand the story I was going to write about and in what manner I should deliver this story. I ultimately decided that the audience for my story would be teenagers and young adults.

Why did I decide this? Well, because the message I was trying to send through this story was that we have the power to choose how we use our tools of English in society. I feel like this message should be heard by the young generation that is soon going to enter the adult world because I want the upcoming generation to know that they have a choice on how they communicate with others, and depending on their choice, they can either make people feel accepted into our society or feel rejected by it.

Some of us were forced to learn English because it was the only way to survive in a nation that spoke mainly English. With that in mind, it would be quite reasonable to conclude that some people may have negative emotions or thoughts towards the English language because of how they may have been treated by people who spoke better English than themselves. These negative feelings and thoughts are completely understandable to have, but the negative experiences that a person may have gone through while learning to speak English may also be something we could use to make our society more inclusive and understanding.

Since many of us know firsthand how it feels to be isolated from others due to our English capacity or to feel helpless because we don’t know the right words to say so that people could help us, we could use our experiences to help make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself.

Now that we teenagers and young adults are going to be the adults entering society, we could choose to be the help that we wanted to have when we were struggling to learn English. With our experience, we could become more empathetic towards people we may meet who struggle to speak English and help them out in a better way than was offered to us. We could also help them feel like they belong in this place by being patient with them and even demonstrating to them that we also have our own ways of speaking English and that their English does not need to be perfect to be taken seriously. All of this could be done, because we or people we know have gone through the struggle of trying to speak in English, ultimately, however, it is up to you if you want to use the tools of English you learned to make our society better and more inclusive. That is why I feel like this story was directed toward teenagers/young adults and why I, at times, included my thoughts throughout the story (since I am a teenager myself).

I feel like my story may be relatable to a good amount of people because I used my personal experience to help the reader understand what immigrant households typically go through. I even tried to include some dialogue in my story to help the reader understand what I meant when I said my mom’s English wasn’t perfect, which I feel many people could relate to when hearing their parents speak English. I feel like these personal experiences served as useful pieces of evidence for my story because they show how your knowledge of English could potentially limit your opportunities and even have “doors” slammed in your face (as the case was with my mom) or how it could allow you to help others (as the case was with me). In fact, I would say that I am most proud of how I used my personal experiences to get my message across because I feel like I effectively used my experiences to make them more relatable for the reader, which in turn allows them to understand my message better.

My story helped me achieve the first-course learning outcome (“Examine how attitudes towards linguistic standards empower and oppress language users”) because it allowed me to go back to my past and see for myself how the attitudes towards my mom’s “broken” English made her feel helpless and it reminded me of how I could use my knowledge of English to empower others and help those who may struggle with English. Especially now, since I still have the responsibility to translate whenever I am needed (not as often as before since my parents improved their English), I was able to see how people tend to respect those who know English more than those who struggle to speak it. That is why my story tries to make readers aware of the power they have with their English because I want society to change and be more accepting instead of being oppressive.

Kevin Lema

Language is a tool that helps many communicate and express ideas with each other. One of the most dominant languages used in today’s society is English, and because of that, many of us have grown up learning how to read and write using the English language. If you were anything like me growing up, you’ve also probably heard this phrase many times as you learned English, “Good English, well spoken and written, will open more doors than a college degree… “. It is a common saying that gives many of us young people hope that if we learn English, we can be accepted by society and given more opportunities to do things.

See, what you probably do not know, however, is that there is more to this quote than has been repeated to us. The same quote by William Raspberry goes on to say, “…Bad English will slam doors you didn’t even know existed.” Now, why does the complete quote matter for the story I am about to tell? You see, the second part of the quote matters because it helps people understand that language can either help you gain more opportunities, or it could hold you down and allow people to form strong negative opinions about you. In the story I am about to tell, my mom happened to experience the latter.

When I was in my junior year of high school, my schedule became busier and busier due to the amount of work that AP courses gave and because I was part of a soccer team during the beginning of my junior year. Due to this, my parents began asking less and less for my help with things I used to normally take care of since they did not want to overwhelm me or feel like they were interfering with my studies. One of the things I noticed was that my family stopped asking me to translate what was being said over the phone and help them form clear English sentences to respond with. At the time, I was thinking, “This is awesome,” because it meant that a good chunk of responsibility was off my shoulders, but I later realized how much of an impact this decision had on my family.

So, I had just returned home from high school and on this day, I arrived home earlier than usual because it was a half day for high Schoolers. I greeted my mom, and we talked for a bit before I went to my room and began working on my homework. I remember being around an hour or so into my Calculus homework before my mind started to wander off, and I began procrastinating. That is when I heard my mom’s voice from the kitchen talking with another person. Like a curious child, I decided to try to listen to the conversation and piece together what was happening. My mom was the type to put her phone calls on speaker because she often tried to multitask and do many things at once as she talked over the phone, so eavesdropping on the conversation was not much of a problem. After some careful listening, I discovered that my mom was talking to an employee from my brother’s school.

At first, I was kind of surprised because my mom often asked me to help with these types of calls back then, but then I figured my mom made this call without asking for my help because she did not want to bother me. Still curious, I continued listening in on the phone call, hoping to figure out why my mom was calling my brother’s school. I listened for some time, and through it, I heard my mom say things like, “Why Eddy grade low?”, ” How can me help my son?”, “Have sample test for practice?”, and ” Is there tutor after school to help Eddy? “. Although somewhat choppy and a little hard to understand because of her Spanish accent, I expected the person on the other side of the phone to answer my mom’s questions because although it was not perfect English, I felt that the message was clear enough for the person to be able to answer my mom’s questions.

Instead, my mom got a loud, “HUH? Can you speak a little more clearly on the phone?” as a response to her questions. I heard my mom constantly try to change up how she phrased her sentences in an effort to help the person on the other side of the phone understand what she was asking for, but all of her efforts were for naught because the employee from my brother’s school was still unable to understand what my mom was asking for. This type of conversation continued between the two until I eventually heard the school employee begin yelling at my mom out of frustration. At one point, I heard the employee angrily say to my mom, “Mam, I’ve repeated it many times. I don’t know how to help you. Speak clearly to me so I can help you. If not, STOP BOTHERING ME because I have other things to do”, which ended up shocking my mom and causing her to end the call with a defeated “Thank you for your time”.

As I heard all of this unfold through my room, I began to feel a lot of anger build up inside of me. I decided to get out of my room to check up on my mom after the call, and I found her with her hands on her face and a clear look of disappointment directed at herself for not being able to get information to help my brother out. As I saw this, my anger intensified like fire mixed with gasoline. “How could someone treat my mother this way?”, I thought to myself. Being filled with anger, I proceeded to tell my mom that I overheard her conversation with the school employee on the phone and told her that we should call them back and make sure they get punished for their behavior.

My mom, being the type of person to try and avoid conflict, suggested that we instead wait for my stepdad to arrive home, and then we talk with him about the situation to see what our next move should be. I agreed and decided to try to cheer my mom up from the experience by talking with her about topics I knew she enjoyed. Once my mom seemed better, I decided to go back to my computer and begin doing research, trying to see if I could, in some way, get the person in trouble for yelling at my mom. I did not get far with my research before my stepdad arrived home from work.

Once my stepdad arrived home from work, I waited for my mom to tell him about the phone call incident she had experienced earlier and see how he reacted to the story. As I expected, my stepdad was furious with the school employee as well. He wanted my mom to call the school back and complain about unprofessional behavior from the school employee.

My mom, still trying to avoid making the problem bigger than it already was, decided to agree with me and my stepdad that we would complain to the school about the employee who yelled at her only after she got the information she was looking for to help my brother pass his classes. My stepdad and I agreed to my mom’s conditions, but before we called my brother’s school, my mom made sure to practice with me what she would say. She practiced because she wanted to make sure her message was understood and received well, so I did as best as I could to help her fix parts of her speech that may confuse people or be unclear. After about half an hour went by of me filling in the role of an English teacher, my mom decided she was ready to make the call.

As my mom prepared for the call, I decided to stick around our kitchen and start doing chores, making sure I was close enough to the living room to hear the conversation and guide my mom if she needed my help. This time, another school employee was helping my mom out with her questions. As I stood by the kitchen, I often heard my mom say things like “Me want to help Eddy be better at reading”, which I thought would confuse the school employee, so I would constantly whisper somewhat loudly throughout the call saying that it should be “I want to… ” not ” Me want to… “. Despite all the errors that my mom made during the call, she was able to get her message across much more efficiently than she had the first time, and what do you know, the school did have the information my mom was looking for.

My mom was satisfied that she got the information she wanted because it meant she could finally form a plan to help my brother get better at school. My stepdad and I, however, were not satisfied because we were still mad about how the earlier school employee treated my mom, so we decided to jump on the call and complain to the school about the unprofessional behavior that was displayed by the first school employee that “helped” my mom. The school took note of the person who yelled at my mom and assured me and my family that appropriate measures would be taken to deal with the school employee. They also apologized to my mom, and my mom responded by saying, ” Todo esta bien” (which roughly translates to “It is all ok”) to them. Ultimately, the call ended up a success, and my mom got to hang up the call in a better mood than she had before.

About a week after the phone call incident, my mom told me that the school employee who yelled at her over the phone was still working at my brother’s school. Supposedly, the employee constantly gives my mom the stink eye whenever she goes to pick up my brother, but fortunately, the employee does not do anything more serious than that. I was glad to hear the employee had not bothered my mom since that incident, but I was also somewhat annoyed that the person did not get in trouble for acting unprofessional toward my mom. Despite those feelings, however, I was glad to use my English to help my mom when she needed help.

After this experience, I told my mom to call me when she needed help with important calls because I did not want my mom to have such an experience again. I did not want to see my mom get doors slammed in her face because of her imperfect English, so I decided that for the benefit of my family, I had to be responsible enough to help my parents out when they needed help with English phone calls, even if I do not always like to do so. This decision led me to learn more “formal English”, which was somewhat annoying to go through, but I think it was worth it because now I can use my English language to help defend those I love and help guarantee they get the information they need. This experience also made me feel more empathetic towards people who may have different accents/dialects or may struggle with speaking English because it showed me that people who struggle to speak English “normally” often face barriers and experience moments where others are rude to them just because of the way they speak English, which I feel is wrong to do.