hard work. “The immigrant who comes here
isn’t so arrogant, so envious, as someone
who is born here,” Valderas says, “He knows
what sacrifices he had to make to achieve
what he has. That’s why what he has is worth
more.”
Valderas notes that it is harder for Latino
immigrants to learn English when they live
and work within a Spanish-speaking com-
munity. “They don’t practice, and that’s not
good. We should practice more in English.
For example, in my work, I have American
friends, and I speak with them to learn more.
But I stopped speaking [English] for a while,
because I haven’t practiced much. It’s a bit
difficult.”
Valderas recognizes the critical value of
speaking English in the U.S. “When you
speak two languages, there are more possi-
bilities … for employment, for the future. It’s
an advantage to speak both languages,
English and Spanish.”
Though he hopes to become an American
citizen one day, Valderas considers himself
“completely Mexican.” He says, “I’m con-
tent. It’s fine here, but I’m not going to
change my customs.”
If he has children in the U.S., adds
Valderas, they will definitely speak both
English and Spanish at home. “They should
never forget their country,” he asserts. “They
should never forget where they come from.
They should never forget their language.
This is the mistake that I think Hispanic-
Americans have made — to forget their
roots. More than anything, where they come
from and their language are very important.”
BEING BIRACIAL
Candice Coots hurries into the resource
center at the UO School of Journalism, still
glowing from her workout. Wearing a UO
baseball cap and a fleece jacket, the 20-year-
old undergraduate sips on a Pepsi and cheer-
fully discusses her life as a biracial Mexican-
American.
Coots is the only child of a Mexican-
American mother and a white father. Though
she spoke some Spanish with her mother’s
family as a child, she says that most of her
Spanish-speaking abilities deteriorated when
she moved to southern Oregon at age 8.
English was the predominant language spo-
ken at home. It wasn’t until she visited
Mexico last year that Coots renewed her
study of the Spanish language, and she says
she’s far from fluent.
Coots is the first member of her family to
go to college. An electronic media major, she
aspires to document minority life in the U.S.
She is especially interested in the role of
Latinos as the largest ethnic minority in the
U.S. “I would like to do some kind of bicul-
tural reporting,” she says. “That’s really
interesting to me … Are we going to become
a bilingual country?”
Rather than focusing on her ancestral
roots in Mexico, Coots celebrates her identi-
ty as a biracial Mexican-American. She is the
external director of the UO chapter of
MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano
de Aztlan), a political group of Mexican-
American students. “I like being biracial,”
she says. “I like having the two cultures, hav-
ing to compare. It’s an advantage in some
aspects, and in others it’s not.”
Coots cares deeply about the welfare of
Spanish-speaking Mexicans in Eugene, but
she is sometimes frustrated by the language
barrier. “The boundary, I think, is speaking,”
she says. “I’m not looked upon as different,
unless [other Latinos] come up to me and
they’re like, ‘Hola! Buenos días!’ and they
[continue speaking], and then sometimes I
can’t understand, and I’m like, ‘Oh, there’s a
boundary.’ But I find, for the most part, they
appreciate you being out there. I think I find
the boundary more than they do. I want to be
fluent. It’s gonna happen, and I’ll feel bet-
ter.”
Still, Coots doesn’t regret growing up in
the U.S. “If I was born in Mexico, I think we
would’ve been a poor family — not that
we’re rich now, we’re still low-income …
but I definitely wouldn’t have the opportuni-
ty to go to school and educate myself and be
empowered as a female. America has a lot
more opportunities, and I wouldn’t take it
back, but I’m sure that if I were a full
Mexican citizen, my life would be a lot dif-
ferent.”
Coots’ reality is far removed from that of
Mexican immigrants in Eugene. “But I feel
like I have a connection,” she says. “I know
how I can help you if you want help; I know
places where you can go if you want to get
involved here … so different worlds, but I
can still relate. I feel their needs, maybe?”
‘ I’m not looked upon as different, unless [other Latinos] come
up to me and they’re like, ‘ Hola! Buenos días! ’ and they
[continue speaking], and then sometimes I can’t understand,
and I’m like, ‘oh, there’s a boundary.’ But I find, for the most
part, they appreciate you being out there. I think I find the
boundary more than they do. I want to be fluent. It’s gonna
’
happen, and I’ll feel better. – Candice Coots, UO Student
ERECTING BARRIERS
Hulick-Baiza says that language politics
can divide Latinos. “Social groups are often
formed on the basis of who has the skills in
which language,” he says. “Those are bound-
aries we put up to belittle other people.”
Rosa Lopez, a 24-year-old graduate stu-
dent at the UO, agrees. “It’s a class thing,”
says Lopez, who once resisted speaking
Spanish. When her Mexican-American par-
ents spoke Spanish to her, “I’d speak English
back,” she says. “I’d be like, ‘Don’t speak
Spanish to me. I speak English.’” In high
school, she struggled to distinguish herself
from the Mexican-Americans who spoke
Spanish among themselves. “I felt like, ‘I’m
Mexican-American, but I’m not like those
Mexican-Americans.’”
As she got older, however, Lopez’s atti-
tude changed. She married a man who
speaks very little English, and she speaks
Spanish at home with him. Her career focus-
es on helping Spanish-speakers to learn
English and find work here.
Lopez says that people who speak only
Spanish have an extremely difficult time
finding work in the area. “Here, as far as the
job market goes, it’s really hard for people to
look past accents,” she says. “They think that
if you speak with an accent, you work with
an accent.”
For jobs that don’t hinge on constant
communication, says Lopez, the discrimina-
tion is unfair. “How you speak a language
has nothing to do with your competency at
your job.”
On the other hand, she adds, Mexican-
Americans who speak only English should
not be made to feel like they are betraying
their culture. “You can be Mexican-
American and not speak Spanish at all,” she
says. “One doesn’t have to mean the other.”
OUR HOME, TOO
Despite the tension that divides Latino
Americans with differing language and cul-
Candice Coots
MAY 1, 2003 13