Yo recuerdo cuando me asustó … – I Remember When it Scared Me …

I remember when it scared me to find myself in a group of Spanish speakers.  The people speaking looked nice enough, non-threatening enough, for the most part they were even shorter than me which gave me that unusual feeling of physical advantage …. should I need it … but I remember how unsettled I felt at not knowing what they were saying.  Were they talking about me?  Were saying nice things then?  Insulting things?  Were they plotting something against me?

Yah, now that I think about it … it seeded paranoia in me.  I began to feel as a result of my suspiciousness, defensive and ready to fight or ‘flight’.

Of course I don´t feel that way anymore generally speaking, because I understand what is going on around me.  Not only do I understand the language, but I am familiar enough with the culture that ‘ways of behaving’ in this group, do not ‘put me off’.

What brings this to mind now?  Well, there are a couple of coffee shops in the town where I live, that have become as native country town squares for another immigrant group.  This group gathers in significant numbers and the almost exclusive  male chatter sounds aggressive and argumentative to me.  I find it intimidating.  And as a result of  the volume of this apparent ‘angry music’  I must always yell my order to the barrista. I don’t like to yell.  In fact yelling for me requires a surge of adrenalin that I associate with being angry or out-of-control or in urgent search of someone under perhaps dangerous circumstances.

The intersection then of what my ears are hearing and what my blood is feeling …. well, it’s not a nice place to be.  And it doesn’t help matters any that this ‘they’ smell unfamiliar … due to I suppose their diet which is not like mine … and, oh yah, one more thing,  that they behave toward me in ways unfamiliar to me.  Men in my culture hold the door for me, they don’t nearly elbow me out of the way and rush through in front of me.  If I meet the stares of men  in my culture with a warm smile and a “Hello”, I am greeted (most often) similarly.  Not rather by a continuation of the same mute stony stare.  No, I am not charmed by this group.  Not even curious.

Now, we aren’t suppose to acknowledge these feelings in our progressive, sophisticated, way enlightened and PC country, are we?  Because feelings are informed by conclusions we have drawn based on our cultural biases which are at best one sided and myopic to boot.  There is so much more to each of us than what can be understood from a single point of view.

I wonder.  If I were to take the time to learn their language … would I find myself less ‘put off’?  Maybe.  But maybe I would find myself even more ‘put off’!  It’s hard to say without actually investing the time but it seems a logical assumption that learning their language would at least help me know where exactly we parted ways.   And if I knew that, maybe I could see as well, where we had a meeting of the minds and hearts. And why would that be important?  Well, I would be less vulnerable to the propaganda proliferated by my own paranoia and the political and financial agendas of others.

What was the point of that old tale referred to as The Tower of Bable?  What was the  reason for bestowing so many languages upon the population?  To divide and pit one group against the other … right?  It was punishment or something like that?  Right?  Well, whether one believes this story literally or understands it as Monday Morning Quarterbacking  … the point retains it’s edge;  an inability to understand one another, divides us.

I wonder if there were an expectation (subjunctive alert) that our children become fluent in several languages (otro) as well as learning their math and science (otro) that they would be able to lead us (otro) more effectively in the direction of a more peaceful world.  Of course that wouldn’t take care of  (nope, this one is conditional)  the greed and narcissism and power mongering of the people that exploit our fears and paranoia for the enrichment through same of their personal bank accounts.

What is driving this rather cynical reflection?  Well, I guess the pickle we find ourselves in (read AZ) when we can’t even speak the language of the folks that are flooding through our borders.  Whether we want them for our labor force or they want us for drug and people trafficking or we are just two groups of people with distinct cultures looking for a way to share the good life that just happens to be, in promise at least, on our side of the border for now … I am thinking that the one that has command of the most languages has the power to either keep the peace or raise hell.  Aquí estamos,  Joan