Perspective
Daily writing experience - day 11
Perspective
Although Guatemala is small in terms of territory (108,889 km2 or 42,042 sq mi) and number of people (17.2 million), it's a very multilingual country with a total of 25 languages.
I was monolingual, and spoke only Spanish. This was my privilege being part of the dominant ladino culture. From an early age, I became aware of the hierarchies around me. I learned to read the signs of deference, and was prompted by others when I wasn't showing the appropriate signs of respect for the hierarchy.
Age carried weight. The older you were, the more deference you received from younger people.
Gender carried more weight. Males were always above females, regardless of their ages.
Class was even weightier. The economic rank mattered, but given the generalized poverty, educational achievement mattered more when “respect” was on the line. When you attain a university degree, others start addressing you by your title.
Location mattered a lot in a very centralized country. If you were from Guatemala City or “the capital”, it outranked being from other cities, or from the rural areas. Although the three eldest children were born in Guatemala City, our parents moved the family in 1980 to Quetzaltenango, the second largest city in the Western Highlands, where the three youngest were born.
However, race was the weightiest of all. Ladinos (mixed people of Indigenous and European origin, the descendants of conquistadors) were given deference over Indigenous people.
As a child whose parents were both the first in their families to have a university education, I noticed the amount of deference my parents received.
When we arrived in Las Cruces, we were at the bottom of the metaphorical totem pole. And I was keenly aware of the displacement. There was no deference paid to either of my parents.
My mind couldn't comprehend how younger people spoke up to older adults without being asked to speak.
Girls were allowed to be captains and compete in co-ed teams during physical education. During dance class, which happened twice a week, we alternated who asked the other to dance.
No one addressed others by their titles. Teachers were always Mr. or Mrs. but that was the extent of it.
We never had to visit Washington DC, the capital of the country to get some bureaucratic thing done, and I couldn't figure out the center of the country. Interestingly many kids in my classroom had yet to travel far away from Las Cruces. Several times I won the “how far have you travelled?” question that our physical education teacher asked when we were back after the holiday break. We used to visit my father's mother and siblings in Los Angeles during winter break.
The biggest surprise given that we were very close to the Mexican border was how few Hispanics were in our school or neighborhood. Because we lived on the NMSU campus, we were away from the large Hispanic community in the city.
During “regular English class” I attended ESL (English as a Second Language) with only two other people. The rest of the day, I was doing full immersion, meaning I was in class soaking everything in even though I didn't know what people were saying. I watched, and mimicked what others did.
Our mother connected with another woman who drove to adult ESL classes. I remember going with our mom to those night classes. And I don't remember what the rest of my siblings did… That's the power of my childhood self-absorption.
It took me 9 months to acquire enough English to feel comfortable. I distinctly remember practicing introducing myself and what I did over the summer in front of the mirror the day before our first day of school in September 1986. I was finally starting the fourth grade after having to repeat the third grade because we moved, and didn't speak English.
Are you aware of the social hierarchy of structure you move within?