Pocha is My Name

I am bilingual or at least that’s what everyone thinks. I am a Hispanic American. I can’t remember the language that I first spoke, English or Spanish, Spanish or English. Even though many people believe that I can only speak two languages I think that I am able to speak more than just two. Tex- Mex, Pocho, Standard Spanish (Castellano), Standard English, and Slang English or as other people like to call it, “Ghetto English”. This languages are apart of my heritage and my roots.
I began to learn Spanish because my mother and father are both Mexican. Pocho was always in my blood because my father and cousins use to speak it all the time. A Pocha is an anglicized Mexican or American of Mexican origin who speaks Spanish with an accent characteristic of Northern American. Even though my mother never wanted me to speak Pocho, my father always encouraged me. He would say, “Andale mija, so you could know were the rasa came from.” My cousins laughed at the fact that my mother got mad and placed me in a bilingual school. This was, “my castigo”, my punishment as she would say. It was so hard attending school at Patrick Henry; I could not understand the basics of writing English or Spanish. I was always placed in extra courses because I was not proficient. I hated the fact that teachers always corrected me and said, “Ay! Muchacha (little girl) what are we going to do with you”.
English was always taught in middle school and in high school. Therefore, I was able to develop my Standard English writing skills further. I learned to speak Tex-Mex and slang English by hanging around my friends. Tex- Mex is a mixture of English with Spanish, always changing from Spanish to English or English to Spanish. Slang English is a mixture not following the rules of Standard English or Spanish. Some examples include, “Hey! What’s cracking or I aint got none.” I always found comfort in speaking these two languages because I felt that know one judged me or corrected me. I felt free. No rules, no bounders.
Even though many people only classify me as a bilingual, I identify me as a multi- bilingual woman. I am a woman who has been twisted and bend to speak the way I truly do not speak and I have learned to speak different in front of different people. But, this is not who I truly am. I am a woman that is not afraid to say, “Hey I am able to be who I wanna be y a ti que, que te valga this are my roots. I am proud to be a daughter of a Mexican and a Chicano.”