Oscar Baez — Watson Fellowship Personal Statement (October 2007)
(Context: About the Watson Fellowship: https://watson.foundation/fellowships/tj )
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To date, I have studied English, Spanish, Latin, Italian, Mandarin, and, most recently, Classical Arabic. From arcane grammar rules to phonological anomalies, it is striking to see the similarities across the most seemingly unrelated languages. Whether it is that the Italian word “così” has an exact equivalent in Mandarin Chinese (这么) but not another Romance language, that the Spanish word “Ojalá” takes the subjunctive mood because it is derived from a conditional phrase in Arabic, or that Latin declensions are more applicable to an Afro-Asian language than to English, nothing stimulates my curiosity more — degree of nerdiness notwithstanding — than making unexpected connections between unrelated languages.
My passion for language, however, grew not out of intellectual curiosity in comparative linguistics, but out of utter frustration. Growing up, language was not the bridge to understanding another culture, but the roadblock hindering my family’s social mobility. It was the enemy. In 1989, my family emigrated from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to inner-city Boston, Massachusetts. Speaking no English and lacking a college education, my parents could only find work as custodians. We live in what is virtually self-segregated public housing with fellow low-income Dominican and Puerto Rican neighbors. It is in this Spanish-speaking enclave that I preserved my Dominican identity and native language despite immigrating at a young age; however, it is also in this Spanish-speaking enclave where my parents failed to integrate to American society. My brothers and I became their de facto translators for every appointment. The language barrier prevented my parents from living confidently and participating fully in my life. Seeing my father hide his embarrassment because he could not help me with my third grade spelling homework was not only frustrating, but simply disheartening.
I told myself I would never let a language barrier hinder my progress like it had my parents’; if anything, language would be my edge. I felt incredibly blessed to grow up in a Dominican household. Because of it I am bicultural, and have successfully balanced two languages, two value systems, and two identities, taking the best of two distinct cultures. I was sworn in as a naturalized US citizen during my sophomore year in college, and can now proudly say I am a full-fledged hyphenated Dominican-American. As I learned in my First Year Seminar (National Identity) at Amherst College, that hyphen could just as easily represents the “+” sign of multiculturalism, a hard-earned plus that I treasure.
Since then, my outlook on cultural assimilation and integration has become more nuanced. Whereas before my context was personal and the result of introspection, I have since studied abroad and interacted with immigrant and minority communities in similar situations but within a completely different cultural context. At Amherst, the study of national identity in countries like France (assimilationist) and Germany (ethnocentric) provided me with a theoretical framework useful for understanding policies governments use to legitimize exclusion or promote integration. It wasn’t until I saw with my own eyes the universal struggle of immigrant and ethnic minorities both to preserve their identity and to integrate into society that the issue of integration in multicultural and multilingual societies became real to me. Even though it is this same struggle I endured in the United States my entire life, I was oblivious for most of my childhood to the socioeconomic, political, and linguistic barriers that made it so trying. I saw how much my parents struggled, but would at times question whether they were trying hard enough to integrate.
My experience abroad erased any doubt I may have had regarding the totality of my parents’ sacrifice. In a way, it refocused my perception of the minority experience through an international lens. While in Florence, I volunteered at a shelter for North African and Albanian immigrant women appropriately called La Casa Famiglia (The Family Home). When I heard them speak only in Italian to their children, I asked one of the mothers, Mirlinda, if she wanted her eight year old son to maintain his native language. “Ma perchè?” she replied. “The Italian education system has no transitional programs for Kristian. Assolutamente niente. If he has to forget our past to create his own future, so be it.” That gut-wrenching statement revealed a reality that affirmed what an extraordinary case my biculturalism in the US had been. I recalled my own childhood, a transition made easy by my enrolling in bilingual education from kindergarten to fifth grade. I didn’t view the education system as a way to transition into English, but as a way to help preserve my bilingualism. I didn’t have to pick between my Dominican identity and American values, between English and Spanish. Yet it seemed Kristian had no choice. To strive in Italy meant being Italian and speaking Italian.
This experience in Florence, along with other interactions with marginalized ethnic minorities (the indigenous Mapuche in Patagonia, Argentina and the Naxi in southwestern China) made me sympathize ever more with the minority communities at home. It also reaffirmed my commitment to a career in public service, one which would allow me to effect change through policy and assist the underrepresented groups of society. The decision to follow this career path was also inspired by a language-related incident. When I was sixteen, I worked for the only Latino Massachusetts State Senator, Jarrett Barrios, and witnessed his losing battle to keep bilingual education in Massachusetts, the same bilingual education I so valued. His defeat represented a step back from the progressive language planning which accommodated community-based demands, and underscored the need for political leverage and a greater voice in the Latino community. My commitment to immigrants’ rights had always been there, but after my conversations abroad, I realized how much there was to learn from face-to-face interaction, and decided to do work to directly help immigrants struggling to integrate here at home.
Thus two short weeks after returning from abroad, I began a summer internship as a US Citizenship teacher for the Education For Empowerment department of Centro Presente, a Cambridge-based non-profit that serves the Latin American immigrant community in Massachusetts. I taught a class of fifteen adults. Some had escaped civil wars, others were economic refugees, and many had been separated from their children. They all devoted five hours of their Saturday to learn about US history and government and prepare for their citizenship exam. Their desire to learn about the nation’s history and do whatever it would take to earn US citizenship was inspiring. For a few students, the language barrier was too great to overcome, despite their enthusiasm, and it was heart-wrenching to see their frustration. Many of them were illiterate in Spanish but would be required to explain in English the differences between the functions of the branches of government. Most knew the answers in Spanish — answers to civics questions that the average native American-born citizen would not know — but were unable to make themselves understood in a second language. Does this mean they are less worthy of enjoying the benefits of American citizenship? If the United States does not have an official language, why must proficiency in English be a requirement for participation in the civic life of the nation? The US naturalization policy is quite liberal when compared to the ethnocentric ius sanguinis policies of Germany, for example, but it nonetheless presents daunting obstacles for immigrants who truly want to become American. These obstacles confine them to a permanent, second-class status of alien.
I began with a discussion of my fascination with languages. When asked why I “actually like Latin,” why I bother to memorize thousands of characters, why I want to torture myself to learn yet another foreign alphabet, I never give a standard answer. The real reason I am fascinated by languages goes beyond quirks in grammar and the beauty in different variations of script. In society, language is a tool of empowerment and of oppression. More specifically, language plays a decisive role in the social integration of ethnic fringe groups and immigrants. It can be used through policy to institutionally exclude or include these underrepresented groups. During my Watson year, I would like to take a sociolinguistic approach to explore the plight of minority groups’ as they attempt to maintain their cultural identity and try to integrate into greater society. I want to tackle the policy side and learn about its effects from the people themselves. This would provide me with valuable experience in the field of policy research related to my career, and afford me the opportunity to spend twelve months immersed in what I love most: languages. Although I expect to study how language can shut certain groups out, I am ready to embrace its ability to open up the entire world to me.
