INTRO: The language narratives aimed was to showcase an experience with language. This assignment was easy to write but I struggled with grammar and breaking to up into parts so this is my revised versioj

Language – the principle of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture. Language is something we all learn in some form; from the moment we are born. Babies cry and clap and laugh to convey to their mothers how they feel. Later, we grow up to learn a language whether it just be one or two, or another abundant number of languages available to us in the world. For me, Language has not always been my specialty… and I speak two. Language is the way we communicate our emotions to others. Along with this come facial expressions, body language, and a bunch of other things that tell those around us how we feel. For me, I always felt too much. My anxiety and feelings immediately take over and my mouth and mind immediately go blind. The inability to communicate effectively has always been a problem in my life, deriving from the fact that with the place where your voice matters most, I did not have one at all.

My parents are Dominican Immigrants, and although I was not born here, I guess you could say I am the first-generation American for my family and the first daughter, and with all those titles comes a lot of opinions with truly little voice. When you are Dominican, the only way is your parents’ way, and if you ask why, the only answer is because I said so. To a 6-year-old, this does not mean much because your opinions do not mean very much; they usually have something to do with a toy. But the moment that the frontal lobe starts to develop, you start to feel very alone in the world.

From the age of eleven, I remember this feeling of talking to a brick wall when it came to my parents, and this translated into every other aspect of my life. I found myself for a very long time to be a people pleaser and very non-confrontational in fear of conflict. This still affects me on a day–to–day basis in relationships and even friendships, and even sometimes in my writing because I always would push my feelings down to where I could not feel them anymore. I spent such a long time longing to be heard that at some point I just stopped speaking because if the people who are supposed to care the most about my thoughts, ideas, and feelings did not care, who said anyone else would? I do not really remember when or how I made the choice, but it was somewhere in high school when I chose to let go of everything that I knew or did not know and start over.

I found my voice, my things, my language. I started new clubs; I made new friends. Cheerleading, softball, school dances, and through the restorative justice club, slowly started to learn new languages. I became someone I did not recognize in a good way, but to my parents, this new person they didn’t like so much. I was not rude or disrespectful or even a bad kid… the main thing was my language. I learned how to communicate even if they did not like what I said; I was honest about my feelings, and that is something I learned to never feel sorry about. The biggest part of learning a new language is knowing that not everyone will understand you, not everyone is going to like what you have to say, and not everyone is going to make the effort to understand you. Which is something I learned a little late but eventually I got it.

Language can be learned in many ways; it’s something we learn naturally but learning how to use it effectively and to communicate effectively is truly something that everyone must discover on their own in their own unique way. We can spend our whole lives learning all these languages but learning to convey our emotion to others is truly human language.