  Time for another short trip down memory lane... It comes as a bit of a surprise to me that some people are intimidated by me, or rather, by certain things about me. I feel strongly that the cause of the intimidation is my vocabulary. I find this to be almost laughable, because I do not consider either my vocabulary or my treatment of the English language to be anything over which to be troubled. This is where I take a moment to attempt to explain why I have such an affinity for the language. It boils down to a simple thing: spite. Perhaps "spite" is too strong a word, but I am at a loss for a better definition (see?). When my parents were children, they were the subject of racial discrimination. Technically, it should probably be called "ethnic" discrimination, but most people call it racial and would be confused to hear it called what it might really be. My parents were Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens, living in central Texas. When they went to school and were caught speaking Spanish, they were punished, or at least reprimanded by the school teachers. As if that were not enough, when they were a little older and began to ride on public transit, they were ushered to the back of the bus, along with the African Americans, who were also being robbed of their civil rights. I can't say exactly when it happened, but at some point during the course of events that served to bruise the pride of a particularly proud young Hispanic man, he decided that, when he had children that they would learn to speak the language of the people who had berated him and his wife.
And so, when I was able to speak and read, it was English that I consumed, and I grew to a degree of mastery of such that it was not long before I was helping those for whom English was the language of their family to better use it. I speak English very well, I must concede, but at the cost of losing touch with the language of my parents. When I hear people speaking Spanish now, I feel as if I am hearing distant echoes of my parents' voices, and those of their parents -- only I cannot make out the meanings of their words to save my life. 
