An American Girl in Guadalajara

Spanish tastes like Jell-O. Like a brimming spoonful, the kind that threatens to jiggle back into the bowl if not lifted with the utmost patience and balance. Spanish is that cooling bite that pushes against the cheeks in a slithery protest of the confines of the mouth. It is prepared to squeeze between the teeth and pour around the arc of the lower lip. Spanish always wants more space, wants to expand.

Spanish doesn’t like to live in the mouth of an English-speaker. It begs to be released, or at the very least, swallowed. The English-speaker’s mouth is rigid. And Spanish, like Jell-o, prefers a curvaceous mold. It likes to roll into a bend, not press against the straightness of a line.

When I speak Spanish, my mouth expands with the flavor of the language. But I can’t convert the flavor into an aroma, can’t properly breathe the fragrant words from my lips. All that I produce is a sluggish jagged version of Spanish, one that lags as it passes the ridges of my English teeth.

I went to Mexico last summer to learn how to brew Spanish in my mouth. I had to travel to learn. The master teachers of a language are those who grown up feeling it flow in and out their tongues. Even the name of the city I visited seemed to test my skill in this elusive language. Guadalajara. A word like the green flutter of a bird’s wings as it follows the gray arch of mist over a mountain. Guadalajara taught me much about Spanish, about how to allow my tongue to hang loose, like a towel on a Senora’s clothesline. But Guadalajara was also the view out of a window and into a scene I had never dreamed of. It was a mirror and a magnifying glass and the closer I looked, the more questions I had. Questions about big things like culture and tradition. But also questions about smaller things like myself and what it is to be a woman.

Spanish acknowledges male and female in a way that would make English blush. In Spanish, each word has decided if it is masculino or feminina; it knows whether it is a boy or a girl. La casa is always prefaced by la and ends in a, showing that the house is female. Whereas the car is el carro and knows it is a male because of its el and its o. But then there is la mano which shows that some words can’t decide which gender to be. Or, perhaps la mano, a word that denotes the hand and its intricate combination of palm and fingers, has found that it can be both genders at once.

The people of Mexico speak in a code of the masculine and the feminine. As an American, I am not expected to understand this. But I have a sense of it. I have a sense that catcalls on the street mean more than the definitions of bonita and guera. I have a sense that much truth was spoken that first week I spent in Guadalajara when a Mexican man said to his friends, “ellas no entienden,” as Adrienne and I walked home from the plaza. He was right, we didn’t understand the masculine affirmations they yelled at us because where we come from, it is unusual for a man to say such things to a stranger. It certainly is not something that happens every time a woman leaves her house. We glanced at each other with nervous smiles because we simply didn’t understand. Even though we knew the meanings of the words, even though we felt them the way we felt the streams of rain roll over our eyebrows as we looked at our shoelaces and walked just a little faster.

Margarita knew we didn’t understand, even though our first year Spanish teachers had taught us the meanings of no and muchachos. Although we nodded in comprehension as she wagged her finger and combined these simple words, “no muchachos,” she repeated herself over and over, wanting to be sure that we knew there were to be no boys in her house. Margarita was our Senora, the one appointed by our trusting school to take care of us. She allowed us to stay in her house, to patter barefoot over her orange tile floors and to eat breakfast at the table covered with lace, the one reserved for guests. She wanted to do more for us than change our sheets once a week, empty our garbage daily and prepare meals whenever we were hungry. She wanted to help us live in Mexico, to show us her city and say, “This is where I was born and this is where I will die. I am a woman in this place and so are you, even though you are just visitors here. This, girls, is how women live in Guadalajara.” But of course, Margarita would have said this in Spanish.

As would Alma, the first schoolteacher I ever had who didn’t speak my language. Alma, who wore high-heel shoes that laced up her ankles and around her thick calves. Alma, so comfortable atop the raised platform at the front of her cold tile classroom. Alma, who with a slight but rare smile, proclaimed, “mexicanas son gorditas!” Smirking because her American students were shocked that she would say Mexican women are a little fat, but in a good way.

Studying in Guadalajara taught me of the inherent differences that exist between cultures. I learned that some language barriers will never be bridged. But I also learned much about the bonds between people. Bonds that exist no matter where we are born. Boys will be boys and women must stick together. Senoras love their muchachas and it’s alright to be a poquita gordita.

Brett Erin Applegate spent the summer studying Spanish in Guadalajara, Mexico. She is a senior majoring in English and Creative Writing with a minor in Spanish. Brett won a $50 giftcard to the University of Arizona Bookstore.