Bilingual Acrobatics

Abstract

Today, bilingualism is revered. We put it at the top of resumes after we’ve proven to a PhD or a computerized exam that we can read, converse, and sometimes even write in the language we’ve been taught to subvert. It becomes cool and trendy to drop the occasional Spanish slang into English conversation “Pero like for what?” Or the casual flex of a classmate’s Spanish pronunciation skills when discussing a novel on the immigrant struggle. So while her camioneta was almost flawlessly clear, the author's narrative imagery blurs with memories of my grandfather bent over acres of milpa and long drives to strawberry fields where my parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins picked the same fruit in the same unforgiving sun as the main character in the novel. You see, her casual fiction free read is my living history.
https://www.acentosreview.com/September2021/irma-garcia.html