I woke up this morning to what sounded like someone was trying to rip through my ceiling and join me in bed.
When I was sixteen years old I moved to Northern Ohio to unionize migrant farm workers (with FLOC). It was in Northern Ohio that I first heard of and met people from El Valle (The Valley). It was in Northern Ohio that I also first heard people speak Spanglish. And while I speak both Spanish and English fluently I do not speak Spanglish as people in the Valley do. Spanglish in the valley has its own semantics its own rules it isn’t just use Spanish or English when you want there is order to it (any linguists out there who can explain this better than I can?).
When coming back from Northern Ohio to visit my mother in Central Ohio, I said something to my mother about closing the window. I said it in Spanglish. My mother went to slap me, I dodged. “In this house you either speak English or Spanish, you do not mix the two.” To her it was a matter of education and class level. Those who speak Spanglish were uneducated and could not speak either well and therefore butchered both…that was her view.
Recently, my mother made a comment about how she was going to have some work done on the house “Elenamary, will you be home? I need you to be home to let the rooferos into the garage.” I looked at her blankly “The what?” without a moments hesitation she said “The rooferos.” “What are rooferos?” I still had no clue what she was talking about. “You know the rueee-feerrrrr-os. The Mexicans who fix the roof!”
I laughed. Ahh my mother in the process of Chicanization and she doesn’t even know it.
So this morning after a brief fright that someone was ripping open the ceiling I put my head back on my pillow and let out a sigh of relief it was just the rooferos.
