I am happy to additionally accept my relations from the south when they come to the U.S. and I am willing to protect them. I am willing, because the truth is the truth. We have the right to migrate as indigenous peoples on our own ancestral continents. One day those U.S. - Canadian and U.S. - Mexican borders will be brought down. I often wondered why God has chosen me to speak many tongues but now I see everything I picked up has a purpose. Only, I must decide when to act on my blessings. I remember my encounters in Walgreens where some customers were looking for help, but they could not speak English. An employee turned them away because she said to them that she could not speak Spanish. She was saying this to her co-workers when I walked by her as she said it. I walked right up to her and said, I speak Spanish. who needs help?. Then she said [paraphrased] Oh. Thank you. They went this way!. She took me in the direction she was before as I saw the backs of two men leaving. I walked in their direction as they were about to leave the store I shouted, OYE! Hombres! Yo puedo ayudar ustedes. They turned around and with shock on their face when they seen me [remind yourself I wear a scarf on my head in public and that confuses people on who I am], and said Tu habla espanyol? because I overheard the conversation the lady was having with her other co-workers about needing more Spanish speakers on the job, I apologized to them for being turned away and that yes, I speak Spanish and can help them. Apparently, they were looking for consultation because one of them had an eye infection and needed to know what type of medication he needed to buy. I was accompanied with the same lady who turned them away, because she felt bad that she could not help those two men to the medication department and as she told me what they needed in english I translated for them in Spanish. After they got what they needed, those men asked me how I knew spanish, instead of answering that-I said to them, Soy indigenia de norte america como ustedes. Ustedes Maya, si? Que es sus tribus? ellos dicen, Mam. So I say, aaaa! Todos ustedes vienen de Guatemala! They reply with, Si! tu hablas Mam?. I said, no but I speak a little the words because some words are the same as their relatives dialects in southern Mexico Chol, Tsotsil, or Tzeltal. Afterwards, I said to the lady, Forget needing someone who speaks Spanish, why not talk with your boss about hiring someone who speaks the indigenous languages for Native Americans, because they are not Spanish, Spanish is their second language and English is their third. They told me that they only speak a little Spanish and Mam is their Mother language. So imagine how difficult it was for them attempting to speak English with you!. And that is when the men smiled and thanked me for helping them and left. After they left, she confided in me that she did not know that Native Americans still existed and that she thought people who looked like them were Spanish. I kindly told her, Look at me. I am not Spanish. I too, am native american but I am mixed with African American. I am not 100% indigenous like those two men who just walked away. Every day, they are being turned away like that, called illegals/aliens, and have to learn both Spanish and English to get jobs. Thank God, she had the ability to reason, and thus concluded that because of her ignorance she thought they were Spanish and turned them away at first because she couldnt understand them when they were attempting English, but now she knows why. She also asked me if I could speak their language Mam. I explained to her that first of all, North & South America has over 1,400 languages+ and majority of those are dialects of family languages within each tribe, and that I understand Mam only because I met other Mayan Indians but their dialects are different so I cannot speak in their language but I can understand some of the words that they say when they speak. Just being able to do things like that for them was a blessing. I know many times they are being mistreated and taken advantage of because they cannot communicate well in Spanish and in English but speak those languages only for work.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 16:53:50 +0000
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