Spanish or English: A Matter of Choice? (Part III)

My first serious attempts at creative writing—feverish and feeble poems of adolescence that, thankfully, were lost ages ago—were in Spanish. Although inauspicious, those verses—inspired by the works of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and Pablo Neruda—were my entry, as a writer, into the world of literature. I was so in love with Spanish—as well as thrilled over my command of the language—that for several years I happily filled notebooks with these first attempts at finding my niche.

But on the horizon of this idyllic existence, a dark cloud approached (at least, in my eyes, it was a harbinger of drastic change): graduation from high school. I faced a daunting decision that could alter my life, and irretrievably so: whether to remain in Nicaragua, or return to Los Angeles, my birthplace, to attend college. To study in the States was my parents’ preference; they understood the value and quality of a U.S. education. The problem was that I wanted to stay in Nicaragua; I loved living there and I had assimilated into the language and culture to such an extent that I now identified myself as Nicaraguan, rather than American. After seven years I now belonged to this world, to this culture, as well as to Spanish, and I fully realized that to leave would break my heart, perhaps even beyond my capacity to endure the pain (or so I honestly believed at the time).

My rational side, nevertheless, agreed with my parents. I had experienced being a student in both countries, and I was acutely aware that the educational resources and options in the United States were, in comparison, unlimited. In Nicaragua there was only one university I would consider attending—the Jesuit run Universidad Centroamericana. But the offerings of this institution were minimal next those of any California university. My limited options in Nicaragua, in essence, made the decision for me, although that didn’t make it easy: I had to follow my intellect, rather than my heart.

In life some farewells are excruciating, and the ones I made as I left Nicaragua are among the most painful. And that flight from Managua to Los Angeles—the one I believed was taking me away forever from Spanish—was, without a doubt, the saddest one of my existence.