Everyone expects someone growing up with a Hispanic family living in America to be bilingual, to know the language. However it isn’t the case for me up until a couple of months ago. Growing up I didn’t have the bests of childhood one would hope for. I actually knew some Spanish as a kid however I wasn’t doing great at school. Growing up every around my age was way ahead me academically. I was falling behind in many subjects to the point where I was put in programs to help me catch up and don’t be left behind.
In elementary school I wasn’t the brightest student. In fact I wasn’t able to read or write properly at all. Programs such as IEP, ESL, etc is what I grew up with for majority of the childhood . It was thought that putting me in these programs would help me. It did but at first it didn’t, mainly because I was never interested in any of this. As most kids all I ever wanted to do was to move around, have fun, not sit down and read/write all day. That unfortunately for younger me became my childhood. My family wants me to become someone great and didn’t want me to left behind so they made me read and write almost every single day until I was able to understand what was going a be at the same level as the other kids in my grade. The entirety of my elementary school year was being pulled out my classes to be with different teachers to help me with English, reading and writing and as soon as I get home after doing my Hw was the same thing something I didn’t really enjoy, feeling and being isolated. As I was very slowly improving in English and ELA, I stopped focusing on my Spanish as this became my priority.
