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My birthday
I was born in Myaguez, Puerto Rico on August 24, 1973. -
My first language
My whole family speaks spanish so my first language became spanish. I said my first words when I was about six monts old. And it was papa. -
My elementary school years
I went to Mariano Riera Palmer school in my home town Mayaguez, were everything was taught in spanish except for the English class. There was were I learned my first English words such as mom, dad, brother, sister and other basic ones. -
My first time out of Puerto Rico
When I was 11 years old my parents got divorced, I left my home town and went to live with my father to New York, that was my first encounter with another full language other than spanish. I was very afraid of having to learn a new language and people laughing about me not knowing how to speak it,so I came back to PR to live with my mother. -
It was my destination to learn English
My mother had move fron Mayaguez and was living in Rincon. I began my sixth grade in a new school, imagine graduation year and not having friends. There was some new other kids, they were north americans ,since they didn`t speak any Spanish they didn`t have any friend either. I began exchanging words with them to be able to have some friends. -
Becoming fluent in English was not a coincidence
By the time I was 13 years old I had more friends who speak English than Spanish. I had my first babysitting job working for north americans. That is when I realized that knowing another language other than spanish was making me be able to get ahead of others by having a job at the age of 13. -
My high school graduation and marriage to a north american
I graduated at the age of 17. I had an north american boyfriend which whom I got married. So imagine, he didn`t speak any spanish so I continue to learn more and more about the English language. -
Working in a guest house
Since I married young I became a mother young so I started to work in a guest house at the age of 18 as a receptionist so I was speaking in English most of the day at work and then back at home with the father of my daughther. Continuing developing my English language. -
My college years helped me become fully bilingual
Going to college helped me became more fluent in English, I always took advanced English courses. The fact of having so much influence from another culture during my teenager years made it easy for me be able to be a bilingual person today.
