Literacy History

“ Once I was seven years old ”

As long as I can remember, literacy has always been a part of my life. I was born in Havana, Cuba therefore my first language is Spanish. Even though books were considered a luxury, my parents understood the importance of integrating literature in my life. My mom loves to tell the story of how, just being a couple of months old, she would give me a book with just words, no pictures, upside down. She says that I would put the book right up as if I were reading it. She found this bazaar so she said she gave me the book right side up and to her surprise I left it the way it was. I don’t know what this means, maybe I was a smart baby, all I know is that one way or another I was always connected to books.  

Some of my biggest influences were my grantparents and great-grandparents. My great-grandfather would recite poetry and I would memorize it and my grandma would read stories to me every night. I had an aunt and uncle who worked at a school and would bring me books when they came to visit. Some of my favorites were Oliver and Company and The Jungle Book. I had very little books but the once I had I read every night. So much so that I had memorized all of them and would even correct my grandma when she got a part wrong. By five years old I knew how to read and write in Spanish. 

 

“It  was a big big world but we thought we were bigger”

Although I loved literature, I soon began to hate it. When I was seven years old my parents decided we would be moving to the U.S. This posed many challenges but perhaps the most notable one was learning a new language. English had completely different grammar than Spanish. And as a kid who all that wants is to make a new friend, language became the thing kids used to poke fun at me. Confusing “he” and “she” or “Mrs” and “Mr” was probably the most notable error, aside from the accent. I began to resent the language but this oddly gave me something even stronger than resent; motivation. I was determined to prove all those kids wrong and although I still spoke with a very strong accent in two years I learned English and was transferred from a bilingual class to an English class. 

 

“Im still learning about life”  

 As I advanced in my academic studies, I began to tolerate English but never really went back to loving it. This all changed when I got to High School. I was told that I had passed the English test and would be put in English Honors. I had been in honor classes before and I knew I was a good student however, I had never been in High School Honors. I had heard the course was very rigorous so I was incredibly intimidated. So much so that while taking the test I made it the mission to not try, for my essay portion I only wrote three paragraphs, and yet I still passed. 

A lot of people speak of blessings in disguise, some have to really think about their’s, for me it’s simple.That small decision of facing my fears and taking that class changed everything. I loved my English class; the conversations we would have was nothing like I had experienced before. And in my junior year when we read The Great Gatsby, that was the turning point for me. I fell in love with the language, the technicality of it all, how one phrase could mean a million different things, and the overall message of going after something even though you know you might never get it. This story had such a big impact on me that I decided I wanted to be an English teacher. 

“Soon we’ll be thirty years old, our songs have been told”

I am unsure of what the future holds. All I know is literacy has always been a part of my life and I intend of keeping it that way. In my opinion, no other field is able to make a person feel an emotion so indescribable that it can’t be put to words yet both the author and the reader acknowledge it’s existence.

  In my senior year we analyzed the following quote by Gustave Flaubert, “ Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tuned for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the starts to pity.” Like that cracked kettle, language is flawed and imperfect. Often times the “tunes” which should be melodic are confused for ear-wrenching noise. But the intent is the same, to “move the starts to pity”; cause a reaction based on emotion so great that it gives life to an inanimate object. My hope for the future is to continue on this path and hopefully one day have my attempt at “moving the starts to pity”.