When I came to meet with Jose today he was sitting with one of his friends from the EIP Program. They were speaking in Spanish and when I came over she immediately stopped. Jose introduced her to me, but she was hesitant to say anything. It became apparent that she was afraid to speak English with me. Jose urged her, but she acted bashful and still refused.
When Jose and I went to sit down for our meeting, I asked him why he thought she was afraid to speak to me. He she was a perfectionist and was unwilling to make mistakes. He went on to say that in learning a language you have to be willing to embarrass yourself and make mistakes or else you won’t learn. He added that people were typically nice when you made a mistake anyhow.
I completely sympathize with Jose’s friend, but I also agree completely with Jose. I took Spanish in high school, and ,much like Jose’s friend, I was terrified to speak. Because of my unwillingness to try and mess up I now cannot speak a word of Spanish after 4 years of instruction. When I began Italian in college, I vowed to have a different experience and challenge myself to practice speaking in front of others. This has been hard for me. I try, but often revert to English when others in my class are unwilling to try. But Jose is right, I’ll never learn that way. Hearing Jose’s point of view reminded me that mistakes are only evidence that you are trying. Sometimes we fall flat on our face, but that’s OK as long as we get back up and keep trying.
Jose and I then got into a discussion about how he is trying to change his visa. I know very little about immigrant visas, so I was surprised to find out that there were so many specific ones. Jose is currently on a student visa, which requires him to remain in some sort of schooling. He is, however, now trying to switch it to a sporting visa, which will require that he participate in his horse-riding event if he wants to remain in America. This system is much more structured than I realized. If you are to stay in America, the American government wants to be able to make sure you have a purpose for being here. To me, this system seems so limiting. You can’t make life decisions or decide what you are going to do next without first going through the government. And it’s not just that the government wants to know what you’re doing, they have to approve it. I think that’s such a limiting system, and there must be a better way to allow immigrants the same freedoms as all other citizens, maybe an annual check up to make sure they’re being productive, or something of that nature.
Jose and I also talked about how each country has their own names for the other countries. For example, in the United States we call it Italy, not Italia as Italians would. I have always thought this was a weird concept. Why shouldn’t each country be able to name itself? I think giving other countries your own name is a way asserting your dominance or power over them, and I just find it interesting that every country does this.
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