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Se Habla Espanol

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Se Habla Español
The man on the other end of the phone line is telling me the classes I’ve called about are fi rstrate: native speakers in charge, no more than six students per group.
“Conbersaychunal,” he says, allowing the fat vowels of his accented English to collide with the sawedoff consonants. I tell him that will be fi ne, that I’m familiar with the conversational setup, and yes, I’ve studied a bit of Spanish in the past. He asks for my name and I supply it, rolling the double r in Barrientos like a pro.
That’s when I hear the silent snag, the momentary hesitation I’ve come to expect at this part of the exchange.
Should I go into it again? Should I explain, the way I have to half a dozen others, that I am Guatemalan by birth but pura gringa by circumstance?
Do I add the humble little laugh I usually attach to the end of my sentence to let him know that of course I see the irony in the situation?
This will be the sixth time I’ve signed up to learn the language my parents speak to each other. It will be the sixth time I’ve bought workbooks and notebooks and textbooks listing 501 conjugated verbs in alphabetical order, with the hope that the subjunctive tense will fi nally take root in my mind.
In class, I will sit across a table from the “native speaker,” who won’t question why the Irish-American lawyer, or the ad executive of Polish descent, has enrolled but, with a telling glance, will wonder what to make of me.
Look, I’ll want to say (but never do). Forget the dark skin. Ignore the obsidian eyes. Pretend I’m a pink-cheeked, blue-eyed blonde whose name tag says Shannon. Because that is what a person who doesn’t innately know the difference between corre, corra, and corrí is supposed to look like, isn’t it? She certainly isn’t supposed to be earth-toned or be from my kind of background. If she happens to be named García or

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