CCNY’S POLITICAL “VACÍO” AND THE PUERTO RICANS, SOME PUERTO RICANS SPEECH PATTERNS

Not all US American citizens whose parents and grandparents were also US American citizens speak English as a native language; and not all want to sound like native speakers. For many Puerto Ricans who were born and raised in the islands, English is not only a second language, it is the language of the colonizer. For them, to learn to “masticar el difícil” with a thick accent is to recognize that you are not really equal when facing “la pecosa” and singing “Oh José, can’t you see”. If you are one of those Puerto Ricans previously mentioned, then you know what “masticar el difícil",  “la pecosa” mean, and who is the José who can't see. And not only you would know what these phrases mean, you would also know what they represent politically to a lot of island born and raised Puerto Ricans. 

This brief essay was activated by a recent event and the memory of a dean, and two professors: a black South African and a leading “constructivist”. The South African professor used to question my accent and my explanation as to why I sound like I, oh well, sound. He often used his experiences back home when learning English as a second language to criticize me when I did not allow him or some of the other “colleagues”* to correct my very widely open vowels. He claimed that he did not have traces of any foreign language influencing his mastery of English. And!? What he did not tell was that his accent or lack of it (really!) did not help him at all when facing the Apartheid system that forced him out of his own country. I guess it takes more than knowing how to inquire scientifically when facing  “self awareness” issues and related political postures. 

The leading "constructivist", when it came to learning languages, behaved like a "behaviorist". When asked once, if she was familiar with Ana Teberosky and Emilia Ferreiro's research on learning to read and write, she -in order not to recognize her ignorance- said that she had seen their names listed on the literature. The list of Latin Americans researching language learning from a "construvist" perspective, theoretical framework, is much longer than Ferreiro and Teberosky, but, if she did not know the two leading ones, why continue? "'ndito" was, most probably, my internal reaction. 

The recent event had to do with immigration agents incarcerating a Puerto Rican in Chicago, simply because he was dark and spoke English as a second language. I am forced now to carry my passport when I am out in the streets, in fear of also being jailed. In these times of persecution, separation of children from parents without any mercy or piety, marking and classifying people for the sake of political gains or pure unpasteurized racism, the professors and their ignorance, when in comes to Puerto Ricans and the English language, are completely secondary; though, if one knows how to inquire beyond the simplistic scientific method, one would be able to interconnect the relationship of one issue lo the other. The political, racial, supremacist climate in the USA today did not happen in a “vacío”, and CCNY was not doing a good job at questioning its foundations. (to be continued)