“¿Por qué no hablas español?”
The man wore a loose guayabera shirt, and a beige pair of slacks, and he stood before my cash register. He spoke Spanish when he first came up to the counter. I knew what he said, but I had answered in English. His brown face puckered up into a frown. “Don’t you speak Spanish?”
I answered politely as I had been trained to do. “No, sir.”
“I see your name tag. Ninfa García, why don’t you speak Spanish?” His belligerent tone took me by surprise.
I stammered. “I-I didn’t really ever l-learn it.”
“And your parents? Do they speak Spanish?”
“Yes, uh, sir, umm … they do.”
“So why didn’t they teach you?”
“They didn’t want us to have trouble in school,” I replied. How many times had I heard my parents say the same words to relatives over the years?
“Shame on your parents!” he declared, and started clicking his tongue with disapproval.
Tears burned in the back of my eyes. I was sixteen, this was my first job and now a customer had insulted my family. I glanced around, looking for my manager, someone, anyone to take over and wait on this ugly man so I didn’t have to … but no one was around to help me.
“Your father should have done his job better.” The man in the guayabera tossed his money on the counter and walked away.
My legs trembled under me, like a small earthquake shook the floor.
I had just started middle school and was taking my first Spanish class. On this hot August night, we had finished supper and I was complaining about taking the class, telling everybody it was too hard to remember the tenses of Spanish verbs.
“At least you hear Spanish all the time,” my sister, Adela, had said. “Try learning Latin like Santiago and I did in high school.”
“It’s a dead language that helped us score better on the SATs.” My big brother laughed. “There aren’t even dirty words in Latin. No jokes, either.”
Then my dad repeated one of my favorite stories about his time in the army. The Mexican soldiers in his company often told jokes to each other. He said if there were any white or black soldiers also listening, they all had great fun in getting to the “really good part.” But when it was time for the punch line, the Mexicans would start speaking Spanish. He always laughed as he mimicked the others yelling, “Hey, tell it in English!”
This story always made me laugh too.
Later I sat at the kitchen table with my mom, sweating over homework. Even though I aced parts of speech tests in English class, I wanted help with Spanish verbs. I knew nouns in Spanish like manzana, libro, gato, perro, but even easy verbs like hablar and trabajar twisted my tongue in knots.
My dad had come into the kitchen to get a beer—a cerveza—from the refrigerator. He overheard me say, “Mom, why didn’t you just teach us Spanish like Elena’s parents did? If we spoke Spanish all the time, I’d get As in Spanish like Elena will.”
Mom tapped the textbook. “Stop complaining, mi’jita, and finish your homework.”
“But you and Dad speak Spanish so well. Why didn’t you teach us?” I asked, wondering why I never had asked her this question before.
Mom gave me a half-smile, as she leaned her cheek upon her hand. “But we did teach you. Up until the age of four, you spoke nothing but Spanish.”
“I did?” I couldn’t imagine myself speaking only Spanish. All my memories were in English. Even my imaginary playmates always spoke English, no matter if I imagined them from Mexico, France or Japan. “I don’t remember that at all. Gee, Mom, why’d you and Dad make my life so hard?”
Rather than grab a beer and go back to the den, my dad came to sit at the head of the table. I looked at him curiously, and hoped for another funny story about Mexicans telling jokes. I wanted a distraction because my Spanish homework was no fun.
My father rolled the cold can between his palms for a long moment, staring down at the kitchen table top. Then he looked up and said, “You were very little when your brother Santiago started school. None of you knew much English because all your cousins spoke Spanish and you played with them. The kids in the neighborhood spoke Spanish too. All our friends told us that kids pick up English quickly once they’re in school, so we didn’t worry too much about it.”
He took a moment to wet his lips with his tongue, and then spoke with a tone I had never heard before. “Most of the teachers at that school spoke Spanish, but Santiago got a new teacher, a gringa. She had long blonde hair, remember, Mama?” He glanced at my mom.
I noticed her lips pressed tightly together as she nodded at him.
I stared back at my father. His tone grew round and low with each word he spoke. “Your brother only knew Spanish, and just a few words in English: apple, book, cat, dog—simple words. He didn’t know how to ask the teacher for anything, especially how to ask to use the bathroom … ” his voice caught in his throat, and suddenly tears filled up his brown eyes. “Santiago crapped in his pants, right there at his little school desk.”
Tears trickled down his cheeks, soaking into his black moustache. I felt an ache in my heart to see my father crying. My own eyes filled with hot, shameful tears as I listened to him say, “They called us from the school to pick him up. We cleaned him up, and I sat right here in this chair later that night and told your mother, No more Spanish. My children will learn English from now on. We will speak to them only in English. I want them to do good in school.”
A customer cleared her throat, and I shook my pony-tail over my shoulder as if to toss away that painful memory. I gave her a phony smile, and blinked my eyes rapidly to clear out the tears I didn’t want her to see.
She wore a Mexican tent dress with embroidered flowers, a style left to tourists visiting the Valley or older moms with no figures left. Only this young woman had colorful earrings and a red necklace with chunky beads that actually made the dress funky and fun. “You know, that last customer had a good point,” she said to me.
I felt my stomach tumbling down. Oh, no, not another one! What is this? National Pick on Ninfa Day?
She glanced at my name tag. “Ninfa, you live in a bilingual town close to the border. So speaking Spanish is a good skill to have. But the man was wrong to make you feel ashamed of your parents and put the blame on your father.”
I found my voice, but my words trembled as I said, “They only wanted me to do well in school.”
“And have you?”
“Yes!” I said quickly, feeling my stomach easing itself back into place. “I’ve always been on Honor Roll. And I take my AP tests next week.” I raised my chin, and my back straightened as I said, “My brother Santiago just finished law school.”
The lady smiled. “I bet your parents are very proud.”
“Yes, they are.”
“That’s all you need to remember, Ninfa.” She paid me the money as I rang up the cash register, and before she left, gave me a wink. “I worked a job like this to help me pay for college. Know what I learned? Rude customers act that way because their parents didn’t teach them better. I can tell that yours did a great job with you.”
“Thank you,” I told her. I even smiled (and meant it) when I said, “Have a great day!”
She nodded at me and walked away.
The night breeze cooled my sweaty back as I walked to the truck where my father waited to take me home.
“Hi, Dad! Thanks for picking me up,” I said and stepped into the cab of the pick-up. I put on my seat belt, and he drove out of the parking lot.
“How was work today?” he asked me, his familiar profile outlined by the spots of light coming through the windows of the truck. “Did you do your best?”
I smiled. Even when I got a C on a hard test, my dad never got mad. Instead he’d always ask me “Did you do your best?” He always made me want to try harder and at the same time, I felt glad to know he loved me no matter what.
I told him, “Today I was polite even when the customer was rude, and the lady after him complimented you and mom for raising me so well.” A surprising sting of tears filled my eyes as I told him. “Te quiero, Dad.”
He reached over and patted my arm. “Mi’jita, cada día me enorgullece ser tu padre.”
And I understood every word he said.