Habla Usted Spamglish

We are bilingual, ¿que no?

Educators, artists and administrators speak about the state of bilingualism in New Mexico

by Teresa Dovalpage

(para el blog Gaspar, El Lugareño)

New Mexico has a long, rich, multicultural and multilingual history. English, Spanish and Navajo (and several other Native American languages) are spoken here. New Mexico’s State Constitution officially proclaims that this is a bilingual state, and, according to a 2000 poll, one out of three families in New Mexico speaks Spanish at home.

A number of schools all through the state provide some form of bilingual instruction and one of the three Cervantes Institutes in the United States is located in Albuquerque. (The other two are in New York and Chicago.)

The Cervantes Institute is the largest organization in the world responsible for promoting the study and teaching of Spanish language and culture. In Albuquerque, it is located at the National Hispanic Cultural Center and cooperates with it in the organization of educational activities and cultural events.

So we must be pretty bilingual here in New Mexico, que no?

“People are realizing the importance of being bilingual,” said Erin Fugate, Administrative Coordinator of the Albuquerque Cervantes Institute. “Businesses, hospitals and schools have literature in both languages and make a point of identifying employees who are bilingual. Some employers even offer pay differentials for bilingual staff. Parents are now making it a priority by sending their children to schools that offer bilingual education.”

“In addition to the multicultural component present in all of our language classes we offer Spanish language films with English subtitles, poetry readings, round table discussions, concerts and theatre all in Spanish,” added Academic Coordinator María Carmen Llanos Tato.

When asked about the use of Spanglish, both showed a positive outlook. “Whenever two or more cultures converge there is a natural tendency for languages to follow,” said Fugate. “Those of us who are influenced by two languages will use the words and phrases that best express our ideas whether in English or Spanish. Spanglish is a reflection of this rich encuentro in New Mexico.”

“But bilingualism, especially in Taos, is treated more as a class for remediation than as an enrichment class,” argues Larry Torres, Ph D., a historian and language professor at the University of New Mexico-Taos. “At the levels where it is taught structurally (at the elementary school), it is run as a dual-language class with both languages (Spanish and English) being taught artificially at two separate times of the day.”

Dr. Torres has had tremendous success with his Habla Usted Spamglish column in The Taos News and his Growing Up Spanglish column in The Santa Fe New Mexican. Both of these columns are used in various parts of the world to teach English to Spanish speakers and Spanish to English speakers.

“Spanglish combines both languages naturally by code-switching from one to the next in the absence of an immediate word handy in the opposite language,” he said.

“In my world, bilingualism is used every day,” said Rosemary García, Executive Administrator of the National Hispanic Cultural Center. “I come from a large family (seven hermanas and one hermano) and that’s the way we communicate, in English and Spanish, back and forth. Here at the Center I have a lot of opportunities to use my Spanish because we get visitors, calls and letter from people all over Latin America and Spain.”

The renowned muralist Federico Vigil, who I found on the scaffold inside The Torreon giving the last touches to his monumental frescos, concluded, “Spanish will never be lost in our state.”

It seems that bilingualism is alive and well in New Mexico. And it should be. ¡Qué bien!

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see Teresa Dovalpage, from Taos to Miami