Frustrations of Language

I speak Spanish very mocho , as I’ve been told. What I am saying to you is that I speak Spanish with an American accent. It is a word used to describe a person whose accent or usage of Spanish is hard to be understood.

There are many Chicanos who speak Spanish mocho because it is their second language. Spanish is our second language because our parents were not allowed to speak Spanish in school and were punished for speaking it in the playground. My mother, aunts and uncles attended school in Oxnard and they have mentioned many times about the segregation that went on there.

That segregation was allowed because of people like the candidates that are running for Oxnard City Council who want to repress the language for their convenience. Turning the microphone off on Andres Herrera (“Candidate, Group Tangle at Forum Over Spanish Use,” Sept. 29) was poor politics. But then again their behavior was no different from the people who ran this city in the ‘40s and ‘50s, pushing segregation and oppression.

For Andrew Herrera not to speak Spanish would have also offended the constituents at the forum. They would have felt like he chose to abandon the language, that he was now too good to speak the language of his constituents in the room.

I applaud Andres Herrera for not allowing the candidates to bully him in the forum (playground) to not speak Spanish as in the days of segregation and oppression.

LETTY ALVAREZ

Oxnard