When I speak in "English"

Whenever a person listens to me speaking in English whether in a classroom setting or on the bus I feel the need to explain them why I speak English "different" or at least I feel like I do.

It's not about explaning them why I have an accent, it's more about answering the questions that I think they have about the way I speak: in a "broken" English. You might probably say, who cares? Well the reality is that I do. I am the one who feels bad when I know I said a word wrong and that feeling will keep on hunting me until the end of that day.

Somehow I feel like I am that weird person in the classroom or that newly-arrived Latina immigrant on the bus. And I feel like that especially in a classroom in which the majority of the students are from a "I speak English perfectly" background or even in a classroom full of Latino students like the Raza Studies classes where the majority are Latinos, but were born here.

I am from Honduras, Central America. All my family is. I came to this country six years ago with no English at all and really frightened to start a life in a new country, a new culture, a new language. When I was in Honduras I never worried about learning to speak another language and neither I had the opportunity to do it so. My father came here when I was two years old and my mother when I was eight. I basically grew up with my grandparents on my father's side. So yeah, this is also what I feel like explaining or telling people for them to somehow understand me. And again, who cares, right? I do.

My years in school here have passed by very quick. I graduated from high school in two years. I didn't go straight to a four-year institution because I didn't have the four years of English or math and other requirements. ESL didn't count. I went to City College and stayed there almost three years and I transfered here at SF State last fall. So I feel like my stay in school is being like in a rush. It's like, I have to take these so many classes that weren't necessarily grammar/spelling English classes.

Well, now that I am at SF State let me tell you about journalism. When somebody asked me what's your major, I go "uh...journalism," as if they would critique me because they know that if you want to be a journalist in this country, you must know English. And I mean good English. Sometimes I said to myself that I think I am majoring in journalism not only because it has always being my dream, but because I think that when it comes to English I am better in writing than speaking. Feel free to disagree! In Spanish I think I am good in both. However, when I read these great articles whether in a newspaper, the Internet or some of them even written by some of my own classmates, I go like wait a minute, do I really know how to write? And this question keeps popping on and on.

Journalism means "periodismo" in Spanish. And it was this word I grew up with. When you speak about periodismo you don't really differentiate broadcast and print journalism. It's the same. So I was like I want to be a "periodista" (journalist). First, I wanted to go to broadcasting, which I still do. I would spend hours in front of the computer reading my favorite newspaper Website's articles in Spanish called La Tribuna from my country Honduras like it is a teleprompter preteding that I am a news anchor or something . Yeah laugh! In other words, maybe I think I would probably do a better job in any Spanish-speaking media. My ultimate goal is to be a correspondent from Honduras to here or vice versa for whether a Spanish-speaking newspaper or a news channel.

Again, maybe people don't really care about me speaking good or bad English, but the true is, I feel the need to explain. At least that way I wouldn't go home thinking about that wrong word I said in the class or that sentence with grammatical errors I said on the bus.