Navigating Boundaries, the Multilingual Experience

Envision living in a geolocation new to your lineage…While your ancestors and your creators grew up a lot closer to the land and the people surrounding them in small populations.

For a moment, embrace the story of migration that is true for many person’s of color, people who practice distinct tongues than the one they encounter amidst industrial cityscapes.

With a new vocabulary comes a distinct currency, one not only of capitalism, but also of blindly chasing the “American dream.”

For previous generations the American dream is encapsulated with merging towards a new land while bringing back home riches that to many are no longer loved possessions.

A dynamic occurs as various generations mount the family tree and extend towards various possibilities.

New dreams are born and reborn in to different schemes of life associated with never before felt privileges like a warm dinner or a variety of options 3 times a day in the fridge, pantry, and hey maybe even your reusable tote bag.

What some recognize as everyday essentials come to others through blood, sweat, and tears compiled over memories of loved ones that can never be hugged.

Distant memories of warm caresses only live in the past.

In a land no longer near, delicacies of ornate language fold over as if dancing with boundaries and composing a mosaic of respect.

Words like “Usted” & “Tu” hold differing significance.

One bows in honor of age while the other creates an equity that does not hold justice as well as a narrative of equality that is not easily felt within the culture.

Where two people strip away their differences and observe the world around through either friendship or disgust.

TU - T[oo]

 In English: You.

While the Spanish speaking culture fathoms distinct syllables to engulf gender distinctions, gender roles, and even boundaries...another completely moves swiftly and bureaucratically as the “simplest” language on earth. So much so that it makes up 20% of the global population.

(For reference, Spanish speakers makes up 4.85% of the world population. The differences among culture are many and they sit in close proximity to being the most notable languages one should be aware of in the 21st century along Chinese and Japanese.)

This is where the picture we just painted becomes all too clear.

As an individual who sits through ESL while other students learn historical compositions of great literary artists… you sit alongside the minority persons of color that make your class notable.

Learning pronouns, adverbs, and quite frankly this is where you begin to mentally check out of the classroom… surrounded by your first ever “radical” musical notes of the Beatles’, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”… You learn that love is the ultimate shared language and that emotions can be difficult to name on their own.

You find your first books that began to describe angst in age. 

By the time you’ve made it to adulthood, there aren’t enough words to begin to describe what you have endured… but of course wisdom is compounded by age day by day.

The differences between ancestral determination and current embodiment are slim to none but the privileges that come from having basic needs met are many.

While your experience may still be one of paving a way out of poverty, the lack of hunger on a daily basis is enough for your ancestors to dance in glory.

Now you must learn to use the tongues you have been dealt and find new ways to communicate, to speak the narratives that have yet to be digested. To enhance the reality of diversity and inclusion and to propel new ways of understanding that examine the unheard, unspoken, and culture shock. All in all, a story where we all share the pages in the book, equally no matter how small. We share an eternal reality of shifting consciousness and blended cultures. We share the language of love and emotions. Along the way learning autonomy and personhood we have the power to let go of power and hold hands post pandemic into a new world of religious equality. 

It is important to note that language, culture, and your ability to express at any given moment your most primal needs for survival and comfort belong to you all while sharing it with the shifting cultural spheres you develop in.

About the Author:

Crystal Cisneros-Villa was born in Oakland as a second generation person of color in the U.S. & First gen. U.C alumni.

They have studied women’s movements including the feminist movement. They use art as a transformative art practice for healing social change and empowerment.