Growing up bilingüe en los United States
~By Steven Alexis Zeceña Díaz
Crecer bilingüe en los Estados Unidos no es cualquier cosa, if you only know English, you would understand this, pero si cambio a español puede que ya no. Y eso is what makes a difference between a person who speaks one language and another one who is bilingual. Being bilingual means the ability de comprender, hablar, y escribir dos idiomas diferentes. En los Estados Unidos according to americathebilingual.com/the-surprising-truth-about-american-bilingualism-what-the-data-tells-us/, “23% of the population of the United States are bilingüe”, which makes them important and are capable of achieving more goals como más oportunidades de trabajo, higher salary than somebody who just speaks one language y ayudar a integrantes de su familia que solo saben un idioma. Many of the bilingual people aprenden en cursos, escuelas especializadas en los idiomas que quieren aprender, o en línea, pero crecer siendo bilingüe en los Estados Unidos, is like living en dos mundos. Outside of home you speak one language, but at home you speak another one. Growing up like that leads to becoming more efficient in both languages and over time it has its benefits.
Hay muchos beneficios en ser bilingüe en los Estados Unidos, tanto laborales como en la vida al día a día. Al ser bilingüe tienes mayor trabajo y salario because you can connect with more people than a person who just speaks one language. This leads to a more efficient job than a person who speaks a single language. In everyday life a bilingual person can help traducirle a personas que solo hablan un lenguaje y tienen que leer, escuchar o escribir algo en otro idioma. Eso hace que las personas bilingües puedan conectar con más culturas y hacer un buen trabajo en cualquier cosa que ellos necesiten. Sea un trabajo, marketing, advertisement, or connecting with more people to build strong relationships.
Si crecer hablando un solo idioma en los Estados Unidos fuera una pupusa, crecer siendo bilingüe en los Estados Unidos sería una pupusa con salsa y curtido, algo más completo. The US as a country should keep encouraging having a second language to their people. For people to have better opportunities, improve their cognitive skills; like memory, and teamwork. If the people suddenly stopped learning a second language and stick with one, it would be ok. As long as everyone knows, los Estados Unidos es un país muy pero muy diverso, tanto en culturas como en lenguaje, y limitar el conocimiento de otras lenguas también se estarían limitando a ellos mismos. Lo cual puede causar poor job performances as you can only reach to people who speak the same and only language that you know. Menos ventas as the US is very diverse and people that knows other languages wouldn’t understand anything and not buy from them y menos reconocimiento, etc. This is why currently the US offers higher salaries to people who are bilingual. They deserve it as they help the company to reach more and more people, making a successful business.
Not only there are beneficios laborales, but also cognitive benefits. According to operationxcel.org/news/blog.html/article/2023/03/20/6-benefits-of-learning-another-language, “being bilingual or learning a new language boosts your brain power as another language has a completely different set of rules which makes your brain to absorb new patterns”. La memoria es otro elemento cognitivo que se ve beneficiado en una persona bilingüe. Tu cerebro es como un muscle, the more you use it, lo más fuerte que se pone. Aprender un nuevo idioma no solo requiere que te familiarices con un nuevo vocabulario y reglas, pero también hace que trabajes fuerte para recordar y aplicar esos conocimientos.
Let’s see how growing up in the United States is very important using scenarios that could happen in real life. A soccer coach, who only speaks English in a high school wants to give instruction to somebody that only speaks Spanish. They can’t communicate with each other, the coach calls another player who speaks both languages to translate the instructions to the person who only speaks Spanish. As the coach is explaining the translator his plan, the match goes on and is about to finish. However, the coach had a good plan to score. The coach was explaining the plan to the translator, the referee told them to hurry up as they were taking long and had one less player on the field and he was waiting for instructions. The coach couldn’t give any instructions to his player. At the end, as he spend most of the time talking to the translator, resulting on the player who only knows Spanish to not know what to do. At the end they lost, as they weren’t organized. If the coach was bilingual, he could of have spoken Spanish to his player with clear instructions and his player would have known what to do. On the other hand, if the player who only speaks Spanish was bilingual, he could of have also received the instructions and he would be able to understand them.
Otro escenario puede ser un caso de atención al cliente. Por ejemplo, una persona le llama al 911 porque tiene una emergencia, pero solo puede hablar español. Mientras que la persona que atiende la llamada solo habla inglés. En un caso así, donde cada segundo cuenta, la persona que solo habla inglés tendría que gastar tiempo para poner a la persona en línea con alguien que habla español. Pero cualquier cosa podría pasar si es una situación crítica. En cambio, si la persona encargada de atender la llamada fuera bilingüe, podría ser mucho más eficaz al comunicarse con la persona que tiene la emergencia y resultaría en un proceso mucho más rápido y seguro para la persona necesitada. Esto no solo demuestra lo útil de ser bilingüe, sino también lo crítico e importante que puede llegar a ser la habilidad de serlo, y por qué en los Estados Unidos deberían mantener y desarrollar el serlo en el país.
En mi experiencia personal, ser bilingüe ha sido un cambio que me ha ayudado en mi vida. Mi primer idioma es el español y era difícil en el día a día, tanto en la escuela como en situaciones normales. Por ejemplo, hablar con otras personas y no entender lo que decían. A medida que crecí, aprendí más inglés, I could understand the people better, and I could understand schoolwork, classes, and events easily. This opened many doors for me as I felt more comfortable in the US. I felt like I belonged to the schools and the places I went to. El ser bilingüe no solo me ayudó a entender a los demás, sino que también me ayudó anímicamente a sentirme bien en el país. Por eso recomendaría a la gente aprender un segundo idioma, el que necesite para sentirse mejor donde están y comunicarse mejor con las personas. Si yo no supiera inglés como mi segundo idioma, no entendería mis clases ni mis trabajos. Esto resultaría en una educación pobre, porque estaría más preocupado por entender qué debo aprender y qué trabajo debo hacer. Eso se puede evitar teniendo un maestro bilingüe que habla los dos idiomas. El maestro te ayudará en clase. Cuando yo iba a Middle School, una maestra ayudaba a un grupo de jóvenes estudiantes (incluyéndome) porque no sabíamos muy bien el inglés. Ella fue de mucha ayuda porque no me sentía abrumado en la escuela por el simple hecho de no entender inglés. Me motivaba a seguir aprendiendo. Con el tiempo ya no necesité ayuda. I could understand, write, and talk English better, enough to have a conversation, understand class, and classwork, and it made me happy to understand it. Growing up bilingual in the US is not only a skill that will help you have a stronger future. Also, a way to feel better emotionally is to reach out to more people and understand the world around you. In that language you learned. Not only an ability but an art that expresses relief, importance, and is helpful to the world. This is why the United States should continue to encourage bilingualism. They should implement ways for people from a very young age, because they learn faster and more efficiently than someone who is already of an older age.
En conclusión, growing up bilingual in the United States is something beautiful that shapes a very strong future for whoever is able to understand, comprehend, and write two languages. Así como también la persona que es bilingüe recibe beneficios como un mejor salario en comparación con alguien que solo habla un idioma. Al igual que en el trabajo, al llegar a mucha más gente, hay más eficacia y beneficios en cualquier compañía. Por otro lado, emocionalmente puede resultar crucial según la persona, lo cual le ayuda en muchos aspectos a lo largo de toda su vida. There are also many cognitive benefits from being bilingual, which encourages the learning of a new language. This improves academic skills and education for many children in the United States, as they develop these cognitive skills. From a very young age, it can shape a great future for them and make the United States stronger over time. Another clear example of being bilingual is this essay, I did it in Spanglish, which mixes English and español. A person who speaks only Spanish or only English would not be able to understand this whole essay. It’s also a message for the United States to keep encouraging kids to learn new languages, as they gain educational and emotional benefits from them. Instead, they would understand only the parts they understood. Por ejemplo, si entiendes solo el idioma español, entiendes este texto, but not this one. On the other hand, if you only speak and understand English, you understand this, pero no entiendes esto. Growing up bilingual in the United States is a blessing that should be given to everybody.
Being bilingual is an ability that changed my life because I made new friends that don’t speak Spanish, my first language, and I am able to help them with schoolwork, personal things, something online, etc. Now I can connect with more people, and I am able to help my family who don’t speak English to translate what they want from English to Spanish. This can help them save some money as a translator is not needed because they have me. Being able to communicate with more people is something that opened many doors in my life, an example is this opportunity to make this essay and get the possibility to send it to a university so they can get to know me, a little bit of my background, and my point of view. In the future, being bilingual is also going to give me the opportunity to teach my children both languages, and they would become bilingual as well, they would help other people and family members be bilingual as I do now and on. This is why growing up bilingual in the United States, no es cualquier cosa.