Jennifer’s Literacy Autobiography

Jennifer Cuadra

Professor Martin

ENGL 1301

27 January 2014

Jennifer’s Literacy Autobiography

        Growing up in Los Angeles, California in a Spanish speaking home was really hard for me. Not being able to communicate with my parents like I wanted because I really didn’t know Spanish made me feel left out. My parents migrated from Nicaragua to the United States to have a better life, and at the time they did not know any English so my only way to communicate with them was in Spanish. They always had trouble understanding what I wanted to tell them, but my older brother already knew both of the languages and would translate for me. My parents believed that placing me in a bilingual class would help me out, but in reality it didn’t.

        The bilingual class was really difficult for me, being surrounded with nothing but Spanish speaking students frustrated me. I really couldn’t communicate with none of my classmates and when I did try to communicate with them they would laugh at me. My academic performance was not so great I would only get good grades in the English portion of the class. In reality, it should have been the other way around so my teacher suggested my parents to place me in regular classes. After my teacher’s suggestion my parents had a talk with me and asked me why was I doing poorly in that class. My response was the simple fact that I didn’t understand Spanish. As you may know my parents were kind of mad because they wanted me to know both languages but unfortunately it doesn’t always go the way they planned.

        My academic performances changed greatly after being placed in English classes. Few years later we moved to Houston, Texas where I continued my education. The change was different, I attended Bammel and Bailey and there I could communicate with everybody without struggling. Though I was the new girl in school, everybody seemed to be friendly with me. I was so used to being around Hispanics that in a way I wanted to learn Spanish. So I took Spanish class in middle school and struggled for a bit but not as much as I used too. As I grew older I got used to hearing my parents speak Spanish that I started learning it as time passed. I was proud of myself for improving but at the same time I really didn’t like writing or reading either one of the languages.  The only thing I did like to read was the Junie B. Jones book series, though I had read all of them in elementary.