SHIFT HAPPENS

I am the son of a Panamanian father and Honduran mother. I never met my black father, but he’s left a lasting imprint, not only on my skin, but on my perceptions of race, family, and fatherhood. My mom, on the other hand, is white as Canilla rice, but every bit of a Latina. And she’ll tell you that until I was 3 years old, I spoke nothing but Spanish. Well, shift happens.

 My mom has always been the family interpreter. My grandmother was the first Peraza to arrive in the United States in 1965. She spoke no English. She’s eighty-two now, and she still speaks very little English. Why? One reason is that she brought my mom to the US in 1967, and my mom learned English quickly, helping the family adapt. To this day, my mom is the go-between that makes US society accessible for my grandmother.

 All this came to mind last week, when I interviewed a Spanish-speaking childcare provider. As a childcare advocate for Western New York Child Care Action Team, I was asked to document the provider’s language access issues. I learned that this small business owner hoped to expand her staff by hiring a Spanish-speaking childcare professional to help care for Latino children. The problem was, the professional she wanted to hire spoke very little English, and the training materials – the training itself – was done in English. The provider, who speaks limited English herself, was forced to translate for her colleague, which raises an important question: Why isn’t the training in Spanish?

I wish I could tell you that I conducted that interview in Spanish. The truth is, I’m out of practice. I rarely converse in Spanish, and since the stakes are high in childcare advocacy, I made a wise decision: I called my mom. With the provider’s permission, I invited my mom to help facilitate the interview.

 Any of the Peraza’s in Buffalo will tell you that my mom and I are oil and water – we don’t mix. We’re both Aries and spend 90 percent of our time butting heads. But for 45 miraculous minutes we collaborated on the interview, making sure to document the story with care and compassion. It was one of the greatest experiences I have had with my mom.

 I spend a lot of time amplifying my blackness, but today I acknowledge that being Latino is at the core of identity too. I read and write Spanish – my first publication as a young scholar was a Spanish essay on Nicolas Guillen’s poem, “Sensemaya.” Now it’s time to extend my fluency to the spoken word. I want to honor my Honduran mom by speaking my native tongue like I did when I was