I have NO idea how that’s really spelled, nor do I really know what it says other than something about the doors and keeping your hands out of them as the monorail doors close.
If you’re from Orlando, and non-hispanic speaking, you probably have also attempted to spew out this familiar and fun-sounding phrase. Most likely to no avail.
Being originally from Missouri, the immersion of multi-culturalism in Orlando was quite new for me … and for my visiting family. Sure you expect to hear Spanish at Disney, but to see it on billboards, have your neighbors speaking it and even the school producing a Spanish version of the monthly newsletter – now that was weird. I remember when I was in high school my dad being upset with me because I took French instead of Spanish. Being the know-it-all teenager that I was, I informed him that the likelihood of me needing to know Spanish in Missouri is about as probable as needing to know French. (I was a bit of a smart alec.) Not that I corrected that error in college – where I opted to learn Japanese. Not your most commonly-needed language tool in America – though the skill does offer a good “stupid-human-trick” for parties from time to time.
Mid-americans live sheltered lives, sprinkled with the interactions of a a few minority folks here and there. We pretty much only hear Spanish in a Spanish class or perhaps the neighborhood Mexican restaurant. It’s from
this neck of the country the phrase, “you’re in America now buddy, speak English” probably matriculated. And whereas there may be some truth to that somewhat rude statement, I love the fact that everywhere I go, rest-assured, I will hear someone speaking a language different than my own, at least one time during my experience that day.
Knowing the difference of being raised where there were a few black kids in my school, that were bussed in from the inner-city in St. Louis to now we have black, Hispanic and white neighbors is awesome for my kids and their perspective on America’s true melting pot.
But up until this year, I always wondered when exactly kids started recognizing the difference in cultures. I remember at 2, Saylah saw a woman and mistook her for her friend’s (who is black) mom. It was funny mostly because the woman was like 60 and her friends mom was suredly NOT! Then at 4 her best friend in preschool was black and not once did she mention a difference in color. But this year, upon the introduction of Kindergarten and public
school, it seems that Saylah started realizing a difference.
At dinner one night she told me she was friends with a little girl who was different from her and that was good because not everyone wanted to be friends with people who looked different than them. GASP! I was not amused. Of course not because she was different than Say, but because Saylah thought it was okay to give this girl a pity friendship simply because she was different. It was like affirmative action friendship. Yikes. Plus I was a little taken aback that she even knew that concept because we don’t typically talk appearance in our family. Well, not beyond personal appearance: teeth brushing, hair combing, keeping clothes clean, that type of stuff.
Even though her heart was in the right place, I didn’t like where her mind was. I thought about it for a minute and decided to take it to a God level. “Saylah what do you think God thinks about people who don’t want to be friends with someone who looks different from them?” She thought about it a moment and decided, “I think He thinks its okay.” Dangit! That didn’t work. Hmmm, okay, let’s just tell her the right
answer. “Saylah, God says He loves us no matter what we look like. And that we aren’t friends with people because of how they look or don’t look. But that we are friends with those we’re meant to be friends with.” Or something like that. We talked about being a good friend, and what we look for in a friend. All the typical mommy-mumble-jumble. It seemed to work.
But, I wasn’t satisfied. Again, her heart was in the right place. But I felt like the conversation fell short of it's potential. As grown ups we often shy away from acknowledging differences, and I didn’t want my little in-the-box speech to imply I thought that way too. Being black, white, Hispanic or otherwise is not cause for hushed-toned conversations. And I was afraid Saylah would get the impression I didn't want her to recognize that people are different from each other, which they ARE. Being different is not wrong and should be embraced. And if it's noticed, let’s chat about it, respectfully.
So in our family we try to embrace differences by talking of skin color, languages, cultures or whatever when it comes up. Not only does it feel like a good parenting approach, I will admit, we have some fun conversations. For instance:
One day shortly after the different-than-me conversation, Saylah asked if I could braid her hair like Ja’nayiah’s. She promptly instructed me there needed to be several braids and they needed to stick up. She thought that looked pretty neat. Imagine her disappointment when I told her that I could put braids in her hair but she might look odd with as many as Ja’nayiah had and even if I did put that many, they would not stick up, as her hair didn’t do that. She conceded ... though I’m pretty sure she wasn’t convinced.
Or, just recently:
Audrey was singing Jesus Loves the Little Children
Jesus loves the little children …
all the children of the world,
yellow, black and brown and white,
they are precious in His sight …
Jesus loves the little children of the world!
She finished and looked up quizzically and asked, “Mommy, who’s yellow?”
... Anyone else ever thought about how non-PC this song is btw?
I did NOT say Asian btw, I thought that might still be rude. I instead made up an answer about needing another color to make the song work. (Yes I copped out, but that was too hard to explain to a 4-year-old.)
But, the fact that my children are surrounded in a culture that is in fact the true testimony to America’s melting pot is awesome to me. Only in Central Florida when my 13 month old decides to have a mommy-seperation-melt down will I get the nursery teacher soothing him in the sweetest slurry of Spanish I’ve ever heard. I sincerely have NO idea what she is saying, but it made Isaac feel better and quite frankly sounded way nicer than anything I’ve ever said.
I think as grown ups we take for granted the different people and cultures we get to be around. I mean, the biggest conversation I ever have about it is when I wonder with my gal pals, just what are the nail ladies saying when we get our pedis?!
I love that the different languages that I hear around me every day will be common-place to my kids. That instead of (like me when I moved here) being awe-struck and intrigued by all the accents and languages, that for a vast part of their life, they will not even notice the difference, because, quite frankly, its nothing different to them.
Since preschool they’ve had Spanish classes. We’ve had black friends, white friends, Asian friends and Hispanic friends. And I love it! I guess it still tends to yield that the majority of their friends do look like them, but have you asked your child what color she or he is? Mine usually say peach or pink. And think its kinda funny that people call us white.
