Heritage & Languages

Je T'aime, Te Amo, Sarang Hae Yo, Ich Liebe Dich all have one thing in common--they all mean I love you. I find foreign languages very intriguing. Of all languages, I want to learn German, Spanish and Korean. I come from a mixture of heritages, 50% being Mexican and the other 25% Polish & 25% Slovakian. Also somewhere in ther is a pinch of Hungarian, but I don't think it really counts.  Growing up, my mother & maternal grandmother always spoke German in front of us kids because they thought we'd never understand. Then we grew into pre adolescents "metiches" so says my dad, somewhat understanding what they would talk about. On the other hand, my mother and father spoke Spanish because yet again, we were little and didn't understand. Then in middle school I started taking Spanish and started to understand the language. But as time grew on, I lost the drive to keep learning Spanish, it bored the death out of me. Recently I've been trying to get back with my roots that I was deprieved of when I was younger. My paternal grandfather instilled in my father to be proud of who he was, he was an American and no one could ever take that from him. So, growing up I never really learned anything about my latino history. Now, it's too late because my paternal grandfather died back in 2001 and my maternal grandmother is basically dead to my family. I want to learn all the history my maternal grandmother can teach me while she's still alive since I never got to meet my maternal grandfather. I want to learn the language of my ancestors, and embrace my history for what its for.

I want to learn German & Spanish for not only my personal gratification, but also to help out in my future career life. Being a nurse that is multi-lingual could definately help out in that profession since I could help more than one person, I could help out the people that don't understand English or speak very little. Korean interests me very much as well, so I would want to learn that too. In the mean time, I'm learning sign language. I have a cousin who is 1 y/o and some sort of muscular dystrophy. He was born with low muscle tone and has speech problems. So, hopefully by the time he's older and able to understand better, I'll be able to communicate with him fluently in American Sign Language and also English.