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On the same note as cultural thought patterns, in one of the articles we read a teacher explained to a student how again, their use of the African American vernacular was not wrong, it just wasn't the correct dialect for standard English. The point of Nieto's article as well as the one previously mentioned is to help students embrace their home language and see it as an advantage rather than a setback.

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In my LEE 157 class, we learned about how different cultures actually have different ways of explaining things. For example, standard english is very linear and to the point while the romance languages take huge detours before reaching the point. I think it would be great to display these to students, especially ELLs, in order to show them that their way of writing is not necessarily wrong, it just isn't standard English.

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I can see what Nieto means when she says that integrating culture into the classroom is vital. We cannot ask students to forget a part of themselves.

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I am slowly realizing that despite not having a major component of my culture (the fluency of the language), that does not mean that I didn't grow up "Mexican" in some ways. I can still use those experiences as a common ground to connect.
Also, ***NOTE: both of my parents are Mexican, it's just that by their generation they were a little more Americanized. My light complexion and rudimentary Spanish also doesn't help with my being mistaken for Caucasian at times.

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Now, what does this mean for the classroom...

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Now, what does this mean for the classroom...

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The further I get into my studies, the more I have reflected on how I might utilize my culture and cultural experiences in the classroom in order to connect with students. At first I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to connect with students from my own hometown because I didn't experience hardships to the extent that they did. I was worried about that part of me that was lacking in Mexican-ness.

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It's funny that Nieto mentions not being able to take pride in her language--for that was exactly my experience in the college Spanish courses I took. So, when I say that those classes didn't help me, it wasn't for lack of effort on the professor's part. Like Nieto says, Spanish was still treated like the language of a lower class by some of my  classmates. They didn't take it seriously and mocked the language at times. As a result, the indirect message was that Spanish was something that could only be associated with ignorance and marginalization.

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#ThisIsHowIFeel

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Ah yes. The never ending predicament of being a Mexican who is not fluent in Spanish. I can't tell you how many times I've felt cut off from some part of my culture because I don't have the language aspect. It's affected my relationships with family members at times because we simply cannot communicate. It really saddens me, but even the language courses that I have taken here at Fresno State haven't really helped.

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My initial response to Nieto's article was something like "Ohhhh...so someone else has been thinking about this too." In other words, as I have gotten older I have become more and more aware of my culture--or lack thereof. I have noticed a sort of disconnection with it growing up because my parents were very much afraid that, by teaching us to speak Spanish, we would fall behind.