dualities in bilingual speakers

So there are dualities in Xicano bilingualism. However, I believe that what am about to divulge here covers pretty much trilinguals and quatrilinguals as well because in essence that which I have in mind is language shifting that is, adjusting one’s way of speech according to one’s environment.

So it does not matter if Xicanos, who by the way not all speak Spanish as their first language nor English, know two or three languages. In fact it could very well be that said Xicanos have an indigenous language already so that by default they are trilingual inasmuch as they not only shift between the Anglo world they must also shift languages style when they confront the Mexican Spanish world.

Ok, what I have in mind is the following and all because I was standing in one of the cafeterias at Stockholm’s University minding my own xicano business when my eyes suddenly came to a table where three young people sat and talked. Two were girls of obvious middle eastern background and a swede. What caught my xicano attention and started my cogs on the go was that they spoke what seemed to me a very Stockholm Swedish, that is, to put in equivalent xicano terms, the girls were speaking as if a xicano spoke like a white dude or dudess for that matter.

It made me reminisce about my old California days. I used to live in Redwood City, (Bay Area) were talking the old RWC with its little Michoacan town and all. However since I was so-called “illegally” in the US I had to adjust a lot so as to “pass off” as a native. Never mind that I spent quite a few years of my infancy there as well, hence the English, but that is another story for another post. At any rate this situation meant that I had to spend, according to my very young logic then, time away from the “mexicans” and so I lived and worked basically in Menlo Park, gíüero town as gíüero gets. My English changed dramatically from one that was purely Chicano to and all out assimilated English, in fact, I know this because I used to get recriminations about it every time I called my relatives and they remarked and answered as if I was a gringo.

So there is a duality in our manner of speaking which raises several interesting ideas regards the sole identity of the Xicano in Califas, Aztlán.

Am nearly certain that we are still doing this in Califas, the question is, when are we going to stop doing this and what will it mean?

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