Hi, my name is Brianna ***. My mother's name is Keisha ***, and when she first came over here she explained to me when I was really young that she had not known one bit of English. She spoke Jamaican, which everyone in America considers broken English. So it sounded different to everybody, and it didn't sound right to her classmates. So they called her names like "African booty scratcher" and mistook her Jamaican language for African. So my mom told me, she's like, [indecipherable]. It'd just really get her pissed that they would say stuff like that--it really make her mad. And as I got older, being that I spoke a public language, which is basically English--and I define a public language as being basically what the majority of a group speaks, you know? Like if you go to Brazil, the majority of what they speak is Portuguese, so that would be the group's public language. And private language, some might know Spanish or French or something, you know, it might be different.

In my house... now, as I got older, I always heard my mother speak utter, complete, proper English. I had no idea that she was any lick of Jamaican, because the way she spoke was such proper English. And even to this day, I can't imagine my mom speaking Jamaican, like if she does go into her Jamaican mode and speak it, it almost sounds like it doesn't fit her. But her whole side of the family basically speaks Jamaican. You can hear it, it's so thick, it's the accent, because my mom was born in Jamaica, and so was here whole family. But she was the only one out of her family who speaks really good English. Like you won't hear the accent of Jamaican on it.

So for me, when I used to go to my aunts and uncles when I would go to my mom's family's house, I would hear it. It's almost like, oh my god, what the heck? I did not know exactly what they were saying, and I did not know exactly what they were thinking. It just sounded weird. I remember my grandma telling me one time, she said to pick up... go get her "the air." And she was saying "hair," but it was so thick, it sounded like "air," and I was lost. And I remember walking around like, "What is she talking about?" And my cousin David, who also is American, born here, and speaks really good English, had told me, "She said 'hair.'" You know, he grew up with them, so he understands. So I'm like, "Hair! Oh!" You know like when some of the words--like we say "human," we don't say "ooman." So the wording was different, and I didn't understand, but as I got older, I started to understand. Of course, I would never pretend to speak it because I'd sound like an idiot. It was just really good to hear, to understand as I got older, what was actually being said.

My brother, who is one year younger then me, can actually tell you everything they're saying, and kinda speak it pretty dang good, too. So, that was good...

My father is an example of growing up with many different cultures inside of him, but he can only speak one language, and that's English. Because I don't believe his parents learned their native language, which would have been Guyanese for his mother, an Indian, and for his dad would be Puerto Rican. And he didn't speak Puerto Rican at all. So my dad didn't learn to speak Spanish, that language, at all.

But now, I have a boyfriend, who I've been going out with for about a year now. And his family is like, 100% authentic Puerto Rican. I love it--their culture, their attitude, just a different flavor from the nice spicy flavor I have at home with the Jamaican side of my family. With him, it's like I can almost indulge the Puerto Rican side of my family because my dad doesn't know so much about his own history in Puerto Rican, so my boyfriend can indulge that. So I can feel really good just getting to be with him and listen to his family speak the language that I feel like I should learn. Like I was cheated out of knowing, because my father doesn't know it.

And it's really, really-- I just can't explain it. I get excited, almost like I'm learning a piece of me.  And when they speak, they speak really good English, which you can hear their Spanish accent, you can hear it on his parents' tone of voice when they speak. You can just hear it, but my boyfriend speaks really good English, because he grew up... his parents spoke it, but he never himself learned it, because the group language or dominant language in America is English. So his parents would speak English to him, so he knows really good English, and you can sometimes hear him word things wrong because his parents kinda didn't speak the whole form of English. Like, he'll say, "You threw me at it," instead of like "I threw it at him." And he'll correct himself, like, "Whoa--I meant you threw that at me." Because it's like, the sentencing is different in Spanish than it is in English, so his parents would sometimes speak like that, and so that where he kinda gets it. The private language at home usually dominates the public language on the outside.

Which, in this story by Amy Tan, it explains how her mom speaking the broken English that she learned, she kinda picked that up rather than the full English. And her mom really didn't know English that well, However, Amy Tan learned, being that she lived here and grew up here, she learned it. But she also got some of her broken sentence structure from her mom.

So, that kinda plays in with my boyfriend. When I'm there, he learned to do the words over time, since he was little. So he can say almost every Spanish food in Spanish. Because I guess, of course that's what his parents would call it. But he can tell me certain words like--I had my scrunchie on the floor, and he said, "Babe, pick up you bija." And I'm like, "What the heck is that?" And I was confused, and then he was like, "Your scrunchy." And I was like, "Oh! Why didn't you say so?" And he was like, "That's what I said." And little words, like slipper, he'll go, "Babe, can you hand me my pantuflas?" And I'm like "What is that?" And come to find out, it's slippers! So a lot of the words that I'm learning now from his house, I get excited. Like, I'm actually picking up Spanish--that's how excited I am.

I feel like through my boyfriend, I'm learning not only his culture, but a part of me that I, once again, felt that I was cheated out of. And it feels really good just to know, and it helps me see what is private language in many families. In my home, we don't speak Jamaican, we speak actual English. So it's like my dominant language, my group language, public language, is English, whether I'm in school or at home. But with my friends, my private language would be slang, or whatever we're speaking. In school, public speaking would be English. When you're talking to adults, my public speaking would be... my private speaking-- I change from what I speak with friends. So publicly, I learned English dominates, depending on if you're in the United States, of course. And probably African would dominate if you're in Africa. Chinese would dominate in China. Cantonese--somewhere, some places in China dominates. I kinda learned the difference between public and private, and that's basically my story. Because now, I can hear my mother talk Jamaican and then understand everything she's saying. So that makes me excited, And I understand about 40% of what my boyfriend says to me, my boyfriend's parents say to me. And when boyfriend says one word or two in Spanish that he's learned to me, I understand it. So, I'm pretty exited. That's my story, I'm Brianna ***, thank you very much.