How It All Began
My experience with multilingualism was one I faced everyday growing up in my household. During the Initial years of my life I only spoke Spanish yet lived and went to school in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The reason for me not knowing English was because my parents were the first of their family’s' to move from the Dominican Republic to the United States and even as of today they still cannot speak the language. Surely having been in the United States for over a decade they can at least understand some of it, but like a lot of immigrants actually using it was hard for them to do. Moreover, Lawrence isn’t like most cities in Massachusetts being that over ninety percent of the population is Hispanic so the need for English is not as prominent as it is in other regions.
I used this aspect as a scapegoat, hanging around with mostly Spanish speakers and avoiding the inevitable responsibility that I would soon have to face. It was not until about the age of six that I started picking up phrases and of course, what anyone learning a language would learn first, the swears. Having an older brother and sister who knew more than I did provided me with the opportunity to practice every day. However, they weren’t always around so I had to fend for myself which is when I decided to leave my house despite the fact that my parents did not want me to interact with the Puerto Ricans on my block.