Canter Bridge

A talk delivered at the induction ceremony of the National Spanish Honor Society (Machu Pichu chapter), Cromwell (CT) High School, 23 October 2023

Buenas tardes, amigos, y muchas gracias, Sra. Williams, por esa generosa presentación.

Good evening, friends, and many thanks, Mrs. Williams, for that very generous introduction.

I want to congratulate those students who this evening will be inducted into the National Spanish Honor Society. Well done!

I was really honored when my granddaughter Kyla asked me on Mrs. Williams’ behalf whether I would be interested in serving as the invited speaker at this important ceremony. Since that initial exchange of texts, my interaction with Mrs. Williams has been a delight. Gracias, Christina.

There was no reason in the world for me to envisage, back in my day, that I would be speaking with you at an event like this.

I grew up in small-town Millersburg, Pennsylvania, a village with 1/6 the population of Cromwell. All of us were ethnically the same, made from what we would have called good German stock. We were certainly not Spanish speakers.

But something happened to me in my high school years. Our little high school—less than half the size of yours—began to receive ‘foreign exchange students’, many of them from Latin America.

I had taken a little Spanish. They knew a little English. 

On that modest basis, we often became friends and I developed a massive crush on the poor souls among them who were women. In the process, I discovered the joy of cross-cultural and bilingual communication that was to set the direction for the rest of my life. I’ve spent the lion’s share of my adult life now in Latin America and another twelve years of it in a role that had me traveling and communicating globally.

From this perspective, from the angle of vision afforded to me by my own little life, I’ll try to respond to the question that Mrs. Wiliams has asked me to address this evening:

What is the payout for the consistent effort it takes to achieve even a basic level of fluency in a language that is not one’s own, as our honorees have done?

Here’s what I think.

FIRST: It provides the opportunity for us to see another human being … to honor that person or those people by respecting their language.

Language is not like a favorite shirt or blouse that you can pull out of the closet one day and leave on the hanger the next. Language is a core feature of who a person is. When we step outside our own comfort zone and dare to express ourselves in another person’s language, we honor them. We respect their humanness. We step for a moment into their story. We see them.

SECOND: It frees us up to circulate in a world outside our own bubble.

I used to travel often to China and I loved the opportunity to immerse myself in a culture nearly completely alien to my own. But I didn’t travel in China alone. I was dependent upon a translator or a bilingual Chinese colleague. 

                        
When I travel to Spanish-speaking contexts, even places I have never been, I am a free, autonomous traveler. I feel confident in moving around, I feel as though I know what’s going on, I almost always feel safe. I can ask questions and volley conversations. I can find a home or at least become a comfortable guest in a world in which I wasn’t born.

THIRD: It makes life a constant surprise.

Because no one would suspect that this face belongs to a Spanish speaker … because I am a late-arriving guest in Latin contexts rather that a native son … I love the surprise that comes when I speak Spanish in a first encounter where no one expects it.

Surprise soon fades, often to deep conversation and human-to-human self-disclosure. I’m constantly amazed how quickly in Latin American contexts people bare their hearts, even strangers. I love that. The desk in my university office in Colombia has a Kleenex box always at the ready, because my students and sometimes my colleagues regularly find that they need it as some intense conversation brings tears. As well as a university professor, I am a pastor, and this calling seems to invite that kind of conversation. By the time we get to the tears—or the laughter— the fact that I grew up not speaking Spanish is far from anyone’s mind. I have been invited inside, and the initial surprise has mellowed into friendship. 

FOURTH: It has commercial value. It just might get you the job and the career you want.

You’ll notice I’m mentioning this one last. That’s because I don’t see learning a second language as principally a career move. I think it’s a move that sets you up to be a broader, more interesting person. But that person just might then nail the job she longs for.

I believe the value I’ve found in being a language-learner is not so different from what you will discover if you continue to give yourself to this opportunity.

What I want to say is that becoming bilingual has immeasurably enriched my life over the course of five decades, far more time than our honorees have lived and breathed. If it produces a tenth of that treasure in your own life, you will never hear yourself say ‘Ojalá no hubiera hecho todo esto.’ // ‘I wish I had never done this.’

De corazón, pues, les felicito. Muchas gracias.