Cállate la boca!

It's funny that certain topics arise from conversations with those you least expect. Over the past couple of months I've been gearing up for this subject to brought up, eventually. The last time I talked about anything similar to this was when this boy wanted me to explain how "Mexican/Spanish/Latin American" I was. Re: He wanted to know when my family crossed the border. Let's just say he was amazed when I explained that border crossed us. Having lived in the state I grew up in, he didn't question things that are generally accepted in parts of this region. But today this thing was brought up, something that White America or anyone who wants to lump us into one category might not know; not all Hispanics speak Spanish. Generally I'm not bothered when it's brought up because most of the time there's no condescending tone behind it, but today there was.

I've talked about this scenario before with my friends and family who have had similar things said to them. The common thread between us aside from not speaking our "native tongue" is that at one point someone in our family was discouraged or punished for speaking Spanish. After that no one was really encouraged to learn the language. We don't speak it at home, we never did. I know what my grandmother is saying when she switches to Spanish. I remember enough from my days of high school when my teacher liked to terrorize the students. (I also remember repeatedly going over the colors in elementary and middle school).

But here's one thing I leave you with. A lot of the time Hispanics who speak Spanish are discriminated against. However anyone else who speaks Spanish generally is praised. Why is that?