When I was in second grade, my teacher Mrs. Ortega had our class color in a Mexican flag on Cinco de Mayo. Of course, the Mexican flag is made up of green, white, and red, so you can imagine my teacher’s surprise when she saw that I had colored in the flag blue, white, and blue again.
“Why did you use blue? Are you Mexican?” she asked me and I had no idea. I didn’t know what Mexican meant. All I knew is that I colored a flag that kind of looked like the one we had at home, like the one that hung in my grandma’s living room; a flag I had seen my entire eight years of life. So, I went home that day and asked my parents if I was Mexican and they clarified, “No, we’re Salvadoran. We’re from El Salvador.”
It was exciting realizing that I was different from the other kids. This one thing made me stand out. That excitement quickly dwindled by the time I entered 4th grade and the kids started to become meaner. They made fun of the way I spoke Spanish: the colloquialisms of my parents’ country, the way we say vos instead of tú, and the way we drop S’s. I had to completely change the way I spoke Spanish to avoid being made fun of. A sentiment many Central Americans feel, my parents included.
“I changed the way I spoke completely because, back then, Mexican gangs in LA would harass Salvadorans,” my mom recalls, “I was young and afraid. I thought crossing three borders would be the hardest part. I just wanted a better life and I wanted to leave the war behind, but I wasn’t expecting to assimilate to both American and Mexican culture.”
Not only are the accents different, but sometimes we use different words for different things. Squash in Mexican Spanish is chayote whereas we Salvadorans call them güisquiles. Straw in Mexican Spanish is popote and pajilla in Salvadoran Spanish. Little nuances that get you weird looks in grocery stores and restaurants. We not only get weird looks, but we have people try and argue with us and say that our countries are states in Mexico.
“I remember a kid called me stupid because I corrected him, telling him Guatemala wasn’t in Mexico,” my friend, Melissa, recounts. That’s something else that drove me up a wall: people telling me that El Salvador was in fact in Mexico. Eventually, I had given up trying to correct people. I let them diminish my culture, my roots, who I was because I was tired of being the butt of a joke.
I have lived in Farmersville for almost sixteen years and in those sixteen years, I can only count seven other Central American families. It wasn’t until I got to 5th grade that I started to become proud of who I was. I had finally met another Salvadoran: my friend Gillary who had just moved from Los Angeles. I overheard her telling someone, “I’m not Mexican.” I butted in the conversation and had asked her if she wasn’t Mexican, then what was she. “Salvadoran,” she said. My heart nearly exploded. I thought, “Finally!”
I later found out Kevin and Beatriz were born in El Salvador and Lourdes was Salvadoran-American, like Gillary and I. I found out my childhood friend, Melissa, was Guatemalan-American, Evelin was half-Guatemalan and Adan was half-Honduran. I was ecstatic, I finally had Salvadoran friends that ate pupusas and mangos con alguashte. I finally had friends that wrapped their tamales in banana leaves instead of corn husks, friends that ate plátanos fritos. I finally had people that knew that: Pollo Campero > KFC any day.
I have completely embraced my Salvadoran roots and I am no longer ashamed or embarrassed to correct people when they assume I’m Mexican.
Though, I always have to correct myself at work when I say pajilla instead of popote to our Spanish speaking customers, but that’s only because my brain doesn’t automatically translate my Salvadoran Spanish into Mexican Spanish anymore.
