Language Barrier

     English isn't my first language. Knowing that, I raise some eyebrows when people discover I chose to major in it. I have a grasp on it now that prompted the steady loss of my native language, a loss I only comprehend when I hear the way I anglicize my r's, my d's, my s's, and z's in my native language. But before I could no longer roll my tongue and speak line after line of fluent foreign words, I had a narrow vocabulary and pounced at the idea of learning new words. The only person there to help with that was Mom.

     Mom, what's that in English? Ant.

     Ant? Five-year-old me could deal with that.

     Cat? Clock? Newspaper? Denim?

     My second and third grade teachers read and reinforced and I clung onto tendrils and snippets and murmured conversation that maybe I shouldn't have heard.

(As a side note, it didn't take long to learn what vaccine and immunization meant when I read it on a sign at the doctor's clinic.)

     The learning continued for years as I tightened my hold on the English language and simultaneously loosened my proficiency with my mother tongue. When I was eight: Mommy, what's a genre? Mommy, what's a chandelier? Mommy, what's a thumb tack and how is it different from a push pin?

     I started watching the news more frequently when I was nine, flipping between small town evening reports and 24/7 politically-fueled anchors repeating and rereading the same stories. I learned to change the channel when they warned "graphic content" (normally followed by an image-collage of dead bodies and bleeding people) or "advisory warning" (when pictures of flooded houses, burned down buildings, hurricane damage, and tornado carnage flickered a slideshow on-screen). When I was nine I learned to just keep changing channels. The first few times, I evaded temptation and spared myself the perturbing revelations of "grown-up" news. Yet, I simultaneously learned to keep watching regardless of warnings and "not suitable for younger viewers" flashing across the screen for long enough that a combined sense of dread and thrill danced through my chest. At nine years old, I became desensitized.

     When I was ten I asked "Mommy, what's pornography?"

     At eleven: Mommy, what's rape?

     At thirteen: Mommy, what's making love?

     Mom answered every question as well as she could. Apparently, "cat", "denim", and "thumb tack" weren't enough for me anymore. I needed to know everything and anything, despite how unprepared I was to learn it or my mental inability to understand the implications these words carried. I made my mother define them no matter how ugly and foreign they felt in my mouth. At ten and eleven, I could not fathom the history behind social taboo, dehumanization, and objectification. I could not predict the horror and disgust those words would bring me during my adolescent years, when I learned and watched and read more than I would have thought possible.

     At fourteen: Mommy, what does it mean to hurt yourself?

     As it turns out, I didn't need anyone to teach me about that one. I learned on my own.