Isn't Everyone in El Paso Bilingual?

My husband Wayne and I both grew up in border towns.   Wayne is from Del Rio, Texas, and I am an El Pasoan. That shared cultural experience may have been one of the attractions we found in each other when we first met many years ago.

I have been interested in languages since I was a child.  My English-speaking cotton farmer father considered his command of Spanish something to show off and brag about.  We children were challenged around the dinner table to see who knew the Spanish word for a certain item.  My older brother and sister, more outgoing than I am, learned Spanish quickly from their playmates on the farm.  I developed an interest that made me an “A” student in Spanish class from sixth grade through high school and on through a Master’s degree in Spanish literature.

If anyone were to ask though, what language my husband and I speak at home, the answer would definitely be English.  But is it really?  Visitors to our home from other parts of the country often don’t understand us when we speak to each other because our English is peppered with Spanish expressions and pronunciations.

“Are you going to the grocería any time soon?” asks my husband hopefully as he searches in the pantry for a snack.  This, of course, is a play on words.  Many words in Spanish referring to a location where something is bought or produced end in ía, like papelería (store with paper supplies), panadería (bakery) , or taquería (a café with tacos as the specialty), just to name a few.  The joke is that the word grosería with the same pronunciation as our invented word grocería  means “a swear word.” Several years ago, a friend of ours made up a word based on the same principle when we were on a road trip through Mexico, saying that we needed to find him a peepeeyería as soon as possible in light of the large number of Mexican beers he had consumed!

Another of our favorite expressions comes from a situation that a friend of Wayne’s found himself in as he was trying to fast track a relationship with a lady he had just met in a bar.  As he described the course of events, he remarked that he had missed a good opportunity because the lady in question really seemed to be listo (ready).  Now, everyone knows that in Spanish, adjectives have to agree in gender with the nouns they describe, so a lady could never be listo. She would have to be lista, using the feminine form of the adjective. Wayne and I laughed about the story and started using listo as a shortcut for “I’m ready to leave the house now, are you?” with no attempt to match the adjective to the person.  Wayne even felt the urge to pluralize listo into listamos to ask if we were ready, on the theory that if verbs take the –amos ending for the “we” form (as in hablamos-we speak), why can’t adjectives do the same?

Trees and flowers are another area where knowing two languages gives the speaker a choice of words to use.  In our household, we tend to use the word that is shorter, more descriptive, or has pleasant associations.  The chinaberry tree in the back yard is seldom called by that name in our house.  It is the lila, which is easier to say and reminds us of the wonderful fragrance of its blossoms in early spring.  Ice plant is not as much fun to say as dedo, the Spanish word that also means”finger.”  The plant has fat fingers that spread out as a superb ground cover in our desert area.  The sweet acacia tree in the cactus garden is a huisache to us because Wayne’s mother always called it that, albeit with a Texas accent.  However, having several names for a plant is not always a good thing.  Several years ago, when I was on a native plant buying spree,  I paid more than I should have for a small plant with the exotic name of “Desert Spoon.” I discovered when I showed Wayne my purchase that it was just an ordinary sotol, of which we already had about twenty of various sizes on the property.  I planted it anyway.

Foods are yet another area where we use more Spanish than our friends from other parts of the world understand.  Naturally, there are all of the names for typical border dishes, such as enchiladas, tacos, chile con queso, guacamole, tortillas, tacos, salsa, quesadillas, and tostadas, which make up a large part of our diet.  But Wayne is as likely to ask me to serve him more tea “¿Más té, por favor?” or butter “¿mantequilla?” in Spanish as in English, perhaps to soften the blow of having to leave my rapidly cooling dinner to wait on him!

Is everyone in El Paso bilingual, then?  Probably, to some extent. But speakers exist on a continuum from monolingual Spanish speakers to monolingual English speakers.  I never know whether I should say the name of a street like Loma Verde with a Spanish or an English accent.  Sometimes I try to practice my Spanish in El Paso only to find that the person I am speaking to has the same idea about practicing their English.  We have a very odd conversation, each in a second language.

Wayne thinks of me as a walking dictionary for Spanish.  ”What’s the Spanish word for grommet?” he asks me innocently.  I don’t even know what a grommet is in English, much less in Spanish.  So bilingualism is more a process than a fait accompli in my life, but it certainly makes for some colorful conversations. I wish more El Pasoans would enjoy the two languages we have instead of wasting energy arguing about which one is best, or, heaven forbid, grammatically correct!