My Mother the Prophet

At age 6, my mother enrolled me in Spanish classes when I was living in Canoga Park, California in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. There were few Hispanics around back in those days. My school was pretty much all-White. I think there was one Black kid. I used to play with him, racist scum that I was even way back then. The classes were held at some park, I think. We learned it from some nice older Hispanic man. I still have a good accent to this day (and especially can roll my r’s) probably due to those very early lessons. When she enrolled me in classes at age 6, I asked her why. She had a crystal ball called California and she was looking into it even way back then. She got a serious look on her face. “This is the future,” she said. It was only 1963. The writing wasn’t even on the wall yet, and she could read the graffiti before the gangbangers had even spraypainted it. I didn’t take another Spanish clsass until age 12, so my Spanish is not exactly fluent. But I can get by in it. I’ve even had gf’s who pretty much could not speak English (here on Visas) and we conducted most of the relationship in Spanish. Got to learn all the dirty words that way. Here I am, 51 years old, and I’m still learning this damned language. I’ll be learning it on my deathbed. Lifelong project! It’s a creepy feeling here in California. So many of the streets, cities, towns, rivers, streams, mountains, hills, have Spanish names. Everyone knows this used to be part of Mexico. The evidence is all around us – all you have to do is look. On the ground here, the mass illegal alien invasion turning one town after another into Tijuana Norte feels bad. It feels like a reversion. The place is turning back into Mexico, what it used to be. It’s not a good feeling. Even the liberals and leftwingers here, if they have any sense of the history of this state, feel the chills. We feel it in our bones. It’s terrifying.

Please follow and like us:
error3
fb-share-icon20
Tweet 20
fb-share-icon20

9 thoughts on “My Mother the Prophet”

  1. I grew up right down the road in Woodland Hills. My mother and brother are both fluent, but sadly I’m not such a quick study.

  2. No Olive, California Hispanics understand perfectly well the proper Spanish taught in schools. The thing about standard Spanish is that it is well understood all over the Spanish speaking world. My Spanish has been well understood by Argentines, Chileans, Peruvians, Colombians, Venezuelans, Mexicans and Ecuadorians. Those are just the folks in their own countries.
    I never met a Spanish speaker in California yet who could not understand me because I was speaking the Spanish I was taught in school. The only times they could not understand me well were when they didn’t speak much Spanish themselves, as is the case with some of these illegals here, who are often pure Indians who speak Indian languages and not much Spanish.

  3. What are Lusos?
    I’ve never spoken Spanish with any Afro-Caribbean Hispanics. What’s that? A Dominican? Thank God we have few of them out here in California. The Mestizos are enough of a problem, I’m sure those Dominicans must be worse.

  4. Dominicans or Cubans. Most Cubans have some African ancestry, even those who will kill you for implying it.

  5. If I were to learn Portuguese, it would definitely be the Brazilian variety. Brazil is an up and coming power that most Americans don’t have a clue about. Portugal is a backwater whose best days are behind it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)