PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE : ‘Like Most Children of Immigrants, I Suffer From a Split Psyche’

Emilia, the Peruvian immigrant who cared for my daughter when I worked full time, recently told me about the surprise of her life. She had taken her 3-year-old daughter, Zulma, to be tested for placement in Head Start.

Although only Spanish is spoken in Emilia’s home, her daughter understood the examiner’s questions and answered them in English. “She knew all her colors and counted to 10,” Emilia recalled. “I had no idea she could speak English. She must have picked it up from watching ‘Sesame Street.’ ”

Emilia doesn’t know it, but her daughter has embarked on the road to assimilation, as I did 34 years ago, after my parents left Guira de Melena, Cuba, and journeyed to Tampa, Fla.

As proud as she is of Zulma’s accomplishment, someday soon she will come to view every step her American-born daughter takes into the outside world with ambivalence. With every new English word she learns and every new English-speaking friend she makes, Zulma moves farther from her mother’s immigrant world and into the U.S. mainstream. English will become a wedge between them, yet is also the door to the promise that is America.

In Emilia’s response to the start of her daughter’s American education I see my own experiences as the daughter of immigrants. Although I move with ease between my parent’s Latino immigrant world and my American life, I belong to neither. Like most children of immigrants, I suffer from a split psyche.

I was 5 years old and my sister 3 when we settled in West Tampa, a working-class neighborhood of Spanish, Italian and Cuban immigrants. Although we didn’t speak a word of English, my sister and I imitated the incomprehensible sounds we heard on the black-and-white television in our living room. Our favorite game was to carry on a spirited conversation in “English,” though we had no clue what we were saying. My mother and father laughed when they heard us.

When I started first grade at Cuesta Elementary a dozen blocks from my home, I was the only Spanish-speaking child in the classroom. I sat as quietly as I could, amid the chatter and bustle, hoping I would not be noticed.

My teacher spoke impeccable, Midwestern English. I didn’t understand a word she said, but followed her instructions by imitating every move made by the boy on my right.

Then the miracle happened: I was speaking English. The transition from Spanish to English seemed to occur naturally. I remember vividly when it finally hit me that I was speaking English: I was playing a counting game with a classmate and realized I understood everything he said.

The growing chasm between myself and my parents, while not apparent, was always just below the surface. My father went to night school and learned enough English to get by at his plumber’s job, but my mother, who worked in a garment factory where most of the workers were Latino women, spoke virtually no English.

Although my sister and I spoke Spanish to my parents, between ourselves we spoke English. It heightened our separateness from them--and, in a sense, was a rejection of their old-world ways.

Over time, we became our parents’ life raft as they navigated the English-speaking world. As the oldest, I often translated for my mother when we went shopping or when there was a problem with the electricity or phone bill. Once, when I was about 11 years old, she took me with her to the factory to help her resolve a problem with her supervisor. While I was glad to help, I felt embarrassed for her.

Later, the normal alienation that occurs between teen-agers and their parents was exacerbated because my parents’ old-fashioned views on dating and boyfriends clashed with the more progressive American attitudes. We were not allowed to go out on dates without a chaperon, usually my mother. Too embarrassed to bring her along, I always declined boys’ invitations to go out.

For my first date, during my second year of college, I persuaded my mother to let my sister come along, then asked my date to drop her off at a friend’s house. After the movie, we picked up my sister and he took us home. My date never knew my sister was supposed to be the chaperon, and my mother never found out that she hadn’t come along on the date.

Today, I am married, have a child and live in a mainly white, upper middle-class suburb. During the past 15 years, I have worked as a reporter for four newspapers. Although my husband is also bilingual, we rarely speak Spanish at home. We haven’t made a conscious decision not to, but we are more comfortable speaking English.

There is no doubt that I have assimilated, but I still feel estranged. My parents remain in their Spanish-speaking world. Their friends are from Cuba, Costa Rica and Puerto Rico. They watch Univision, a Spanish-language television network, and listen to Spanish radio.

But, strangely, I feel closer to them than ever before, perhaps because I understand better what they sacrificed by leaving their homeland and their struggle to raise children in an alien country.

We, the children and grandchildren of immigrants, must strive to keep alive the risk-taking immigrant spirit, the strength and beauty of America. As scary as it is, by reclaiming the “values of flight,” we can go home again.