Translations

Last session one of my English as a Second Language students, a skinny 17-year-old full-time dishwasher who moved here a year ago from Mexico, had a habit of memorizing English phrases spoken to him that he didn’t understand and asking me later for translations.

“Wa da ya min no,” he asked, wanting to understand. I figured that out to be, “What do you mean, no?” I could tell him what the words meant, but I needed more context to explain why it was said. It turns out that at work a cook had asked him to do something (he wasn’t sure what), and he, not knowing what she said, had guessed a response and replied, “no.” He apparently answered incorrectly. We talked about why she said that, the power relationships implicated, and sarcasm.

This kid is particularly bright, curious, and motivated. I tried to work with him to consider, once he knows more English, completing the free GED program offered. But his work schedule changed and now he isn’t attending English classes anymore. When I think of him, I see him running along the highway on his way home after classes, no car, no money for the bus. I think of his coming to the US as a teenager and finding work, supporting himself, enrolling in class, buying a picture dictionary I recommended, doing his homework, saving up questions, raising his hand, all alone. I want to mother him. We live a world apart.

He’s so brave and despite all his hard work, he’s generically maligned as an illegal immigrant, like many of my students. He wants to learn English and improve himself, send money back home, and contribute to his newly chosen society, which is so hard to do while subsisting on below minimum-wage, living on the fringe, underage, undereducated. It’s not such an easy thing for immigrants to “just learn English already.” But he shows great promise, as do others. This nation’s history, a fantasy of opportunity for many, is full of daring and dedicated people like him, and its future will be shaped by them, too (like it or not, truly). Often for the better.