Marvin

My stomach hurts and I don't want to translate a paper so I'm going to take a break.

I have a student named Marvin, he's a transfer student from Linda Vista Elementary School, he's very tall for his age, and is even-tempered. Sometimes he understands what I'm saying with ease and others, with great difficulty, I didn't think too much about it until today.

Come to find out, Marvin immigrated from El Salvador about two years ago. When I found out, I immediately felt humbled.

While waiting for some kids to finish their homework in Homework Center, I said, "Marvin, ven aqui." I started to ask him about his experience...He said that it's hard for him to do his homework because it's in English, and though his dad started to teach him English some time ago, he learned the majority of it in school, he also prefers his native tongue over English. At one point I asked him, "Do you like it here?" He shook his head and I noticed that he lowered his face, as to avoid eye contact with me. I asked, "Do you miss home?" At this point when he looked up, his eyes were bright red and glossy. I asked him, "Do you want to go to the bathroom?" and to this, he said yes.

While he was in the bathroom, I thought about how life is difficult. In reading Spanish poetry, a common theme is a love that people have for their "patria", their homeland. Jose Marti automatically came to mind, some lyrics in a song by Calle 13 say, "El que no quiere a su patria, no quiere a su madre." I would love to move to Los Angeles, New York City, or Miami but to permanently move to another country, though sounds exciting, is equally scary. Marvin probably feels displaced. I thought about the "American Dream", and though he may eventually grow to like San Jose, California, for a ten-year-old to move from a Spanish speaking country to an English speaking country, keep up with homework in English, make friends and communicate in English, along a list of other things, Marvin is a very strong young man.

When he came back, I told him that I study Spanish in school and that I'll need someone to practice with. He then told me, "I don't like Spanish" and I responded, "What? You just told me you did?" He told me that his mom told him not to speak Spanish to anyone, and I realized that she probably wanted Marvin to assimilate well. I then told him, "Marvin, everyone speaks Spanish here." I called over about four different students and told them to tell me about their Thanksgiving in Spanish, and sure enough, Marvin and I both were entangled in stories in the language of love. He smiled. I wanted him to recognize that probably 90% of the students (Lyndale has a 97% Latino presence) speak Spanish, and many kids live in his situation or some variation of it.

I found out that Marvin doesn't like pizza because "it makes you fat". He doesn't like hot dogs, but he does like spaghetti.

When it was silent reading time, I noticed him dozing off and not paying attention, and he had every right to, why read a book in a language that is difficult to understand? I told that him that he needed to read to me. He initially hesitated but I told him, "No, porque ya me dijiste que para ti, es dificil para entender ingles, y necesitas practicar." I felt like I was acting in my purpose when I was helping him, it took him about ten minutes to read two pages. I thought about the struggle Marvin will have to endure, and how he'll have to figure it out along the way, and I thanked God for my job at this point because I want to see Marvin suceed, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that he does. I'm going to take him under my wing. I told Ryan that we meet half way with his under-developed English and my under-developed Spanish. There was one part in the book that said "pretty frightening", I told him, "En este sentido, 'pretty' no significa 'hermosa' o 'linda' o 'guapa' o 'bonita', es el mismo que 'muy' o 'tan', como 'very'" and he shook his head in understanding. Another part of the book had a sentence that said, "his mom wanted him to leave a tip" and I asked him, "Sabes lo que significa 'tip'?" He responded, "punto?" And I told him, "No, en este sentido, es lo que tus padres pagan a una persona que lleva maletas, como..." and Marvin finished my thought by saying, "...tres o cuatro dolares." I smiled.

I'm sure many of you know by now that my heart is for el pueblo latino. I am not defending my heart by this statement, but I will say that Latinos face things like lack of resources, lack of formal education in order to help their children, language barriers, and racism, amongst other things. The language barrier is an area where I feel that I will be used. When I was explaining the meanings to Marvin, I thought that maybe on down the line, I can become an ESL specialist, and with my tutoring, I'd love to self-contract myself as a tutor for Spanish speaking children who are struggling in literacy or ESL students at little or no cost at all.

I can't tell you how good it felt to help him. Marvin is going to succeed in his life.

I can't pinpoint what my purpose is, but I do know that I acted in it today.