Chris Ortega - Week 4

 

“College was a whole new world from high school, and I had been fortunate enough to find friends and resources to help me, but when I came to Purdue, I realized it had not been intended for me, or people like me; despite decades of access, some things about the place still resisted me.” (23-24)

This part from Morrison’s essay really resonated with me because I had a similar experience in my own life. I went to a college that was very, very different from where I grew up, and when I first got there I felt a similar sense of alienation. That sense stayed with me until, by chance, I went to the office hours of a Spanish professor to ask something and accidentally said something in Spanglish, which is what I grew up speaking. I still remember how the professor’s face lit up as he started talking in a rapid-fire Mexican Spanglish, and how I finally felt like I could actually belong at the college as I fired back and we laughed and talked like human beings instead of actors beholden to the mores of academia.

That experience helped solidify in me the importance of language as a facet of identity, and the need to support and celebrate all manners of communication.

I agree completely with the sentiments behind the CCC’s statement and Michigan State University’s Language Statement. Everyone deserves the opportunity to speak and write in the ways most comfortable to them, and it’s our responsibility to continually learn how to better support students’ abilities to do so.

Comments

  1. Jose Di PaolaSeptember 22, 2020 at 8:34 PM

    I love your characterization of formalized language as talking like actors. Communication under the expected formalized language conventions can feel disingenuous, because we are expected to fit all our communication into a one-size-fits-all role. Do you think a more open attitude towards the use of different languages and dialects would also make us more genuine in other ways? Less secretive and more honest with each other?

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