In my humble and unbiased opinion, Spanish is the most beautiful language in the world. All the romance of French without any of those throat sounds, and the fluidity of Italian (I tried thinking of a negative about Italian, but I couldn’t, so I guess they are tied). I love my first language and hold onto it as a key part of my heritage and culture. It connects me back to Mexico. Sometimes, when I haven’t spoken it for a while my Spanish gets choppy, and my fluency wanes, but a few days in Mexico only speaking Spanish and I am right back to fluent. It’s like riding a bike. I never forget how to do it, but the first bit after not having ridden for a while is less than smooth. 

 

All that being said, Spanish is not the language of Mexico – it is the language of colonizers. My family did not arrive in Mexico with the conquistadors, instead they arrived much later from Catalonia. They were not in Mexico during the colonial era and had no part in that disgusting part of Mexico’s history. My grandfather’s lineage goes back to native Mexicans and at some point, in the 1800’s they intermarried with some French immigrants. My grandmother’s side all came in the 1800’s, from aforementioned Catalonia, and also from France. So, there isn’t a drop of Spanish blood in me (and if you try to tell me Catalonia is part of Spain, I would be happy to engage in that conversation because it is incredibly complicated, but I don’t consider myself Spanish). This is a bit of a double whammy, Spain colonized Mexico, my ethnic homeland, and also exercises control over Catalonia, the homeland of my ancestors, and yet I speak their language proudly. I don’t know how that makes sense either. 

 

I have been trying to learn Catalan, but classes or work gets in the way, and I go months at a time without practicing. It’s a beautiful language in its own right, but I just don’t speak it. Anyways, Spanish is near and dear to my heart. Afterall, the Spanish I speak is a little different to that of Spain or Argentina or Bolivia. I speak Mexican Spanish with all its sing-songy tonal changes and slang that would make a prim and proper Spaniard faint. My Spanish is to Spain as my English (the Texan variety) is to English from England. It’s not as fancy, but its mine.