growing up bi lingual

I have been awful at posting. sorry. I will continue to post snippets of interviews that others might find interesting.   Of my interview population that grew up in Panama, as opposed to the Canal Zone, (born 1960 or earlier) many people spoke English at home and Spanish in school.   They tell about going to English school on school breaks and over the summer to reinforce what they learned in Spanish and also to get ahead, and concurrently learning school lessons in English and Spanish.  This particular woman grew up between Bocas del Toro and Colon, both strongly West Indian communities in the time.


Interestingly, during times of reflection, this interviewee spoke in English. During the more political or contemporary parts of our conversation, she spoke in Spanish.


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Listen, in Bocas I learned what was to live in a community, what was sharing, what was like go over by Ms. Gerly and tell Ms. Gerly I say, "if she bake any Jhonny cake send me six". And then tomorrow night my mom would make some mogo and make a big pot of mogo and say this pot is for Ms. Gerly, this is for Ms. Julian and this is for us. I learned that. I learned that definitely you have to go to school and when you come out of school you had to go to English school because we had to learn to read and write Spanish just as we learn English. So I went through what was Infant reader and Royal reader you know.

This was during the summers?

Well that was during the school year. If I had classes in the morning I got to rush home, have lunch and take my homework to Ms. Smith, who was our English teacher and Ms. Henry after Ms. Smith couldn’t do it anymore. And then they would help us with the Spanish homework. And then we would do the English. And then in summer time, depend on you grades, then you would spend a month in Colon, which was our vacation. I would spend it with our relatives on the Zone here in Colon. And then go back because I had to go to summer school. By the time classes were going to open, I had to have at least a month a month and a half going to my English school to reinforce whatever we’re gonna see in the other grade. Like if you came out of second grade and went to third grade then my English teachers will give me more arithmetic and more reading and stuff like that so that when I go back to school in the Spanish school, I’m advanced. That’s one of the things I learned. A the love for the land. And each person. If you don’t have you land and you house you don’t have nothing. And you had to respect that. That’s what I learn. And I try to teach my kids that even though we live in the city, you know.