“To this day, my father has followed my teachers’ suggestions and speaks exclusively to me in English, even though he cannot fully express himself in it. It was my perfect SAT verbal score that earned me the interest of top schools, and it was my minority status that sweetened my deal with many of them. My mother is frustrated by the rejection of my first language, and when she questions me in Spanish, I answer her in English, unwilling to communicate in the staccato rhythms of a song learned half-heartedly. Language is a battleground, and I prefer to fight in the tongue with which I am best armed. That lesson was passed down from my parents. My parents fought to their divorce in Spanish, the language of lovers, and when I was told everything was going to be fine, it was told to me in English, because in English, it doesn’t have to be true. I’m an English major. It is a language of conquest. What does it say that I’m mastering the same language that was used to make my mother feel inferior? Growing up, I had a white friend who used to laugh whenever my mother spoke English, amused by the way she rolled her r’s. My sister and I tease Mami about her accent too, but it’s different when we do it, or is it? The echoes of colonization linger in my voice. The weapons of the death squads that pushed my mother out of El Salvador were U.S.-funded. When Nixon promised, “We’re going to smash him!” it was said in his native tongue, and when the Chilean president he smashed used his last words to promise, “Long live Chile!” it was said in his. And when my family told me the story of my grandfather’s arrest by the dictatorship that followed, my grandfather stayed silent, and meeting his eyes, I cried, understanding that there were no words big enough for loss.”