By Mariana Graciano
Empires
Quiero escribir un texto sobre este proceso de volverme (¿o hacerme?) ciudadana estadounidense.
I want to write a text about this process of becoming (“making me?”) a US citizen.
In Spanish the word for a person born in the US is “estadounidense.” It is an adjective, a demonym, that doesn’t exist in (American) English.
Spanish and español are not the same. I wouldn’t call my native language “español,” as there are multiple languages spoken in España (Gallego, Catalan, Basque and more). I’d rather say it is “castellano rioplatense,” trying to be more specific, trying to push away from the empire, that other empire that was also abusive of the land where I was born.
“Que siempre fue la lengua compañera del imperio,” ya lo dijo Nebrija en 1492.(1)
Sub(d)altern
Maybe because I was the youngest daughter in my family for 13 years, when my little sister was born. Maybe because my older sister was a very strong dominant figure in my childhood, I learned to always be on the side of the small ones, the subordinates.
Or maybe because I was also born in a third world country, in Sudamérica, the Southern Cone, at the other end of the American continent: Argentina. In Argentina we call people from the US “yanqui,” pronouncing the “y” as a “sh,” meaning: Yankee, capitalist, materialistic, brain washed, ignorant, superficial, and a long list of pejorative adjectives.
As a South American teenager, I learned that the US was the head of the (American) Empire, that it had been exploiting Latin (American) countries forever. I learned that the US had started wars in the name of “freedom and democracy” all over the word, although they were truly only interested in freeing the market for the benefit of big corporations, colonizing our economies.
Capitalism (also) was always the companion of empire.
Becoming American
Volverse Americana. Perhaps it is also a return, a return to myself, to expand and explore the full meaning of that word: Americana, more Americana, more me, more everyone, more shared identity, from north to south, yoking the two edges of the continent.(2)
American
How much of our mother language affects our thinking process? Can we even think outside of (our) language? Or outside of syntax? Can we put ideas together if we can’t name them?
Americans don’t have a word to specify the country from which they (we) are from. Do I have that word?
I look for translations of “estadounidense” and find “United Statesian.”
What came first? The imperialistic greed to own the whole continent, or the actual American Empire?
Americana: Una persona nacida en el continente americano.
American/a
I’m feeling a semantic greed
I’m becoming a US citizen
I’m becoming American
I’m thinking of my Americanness as an expansion of my Latin Americanity
I’m adding North American
To my South American ID
My kids have blood from
Africa
South America
Europe
They are born and raised
Americans
Tracing
I moved to NY in August 2010, to pursue a Master in Creative Writing in Spanish. That MFA was the only one in its kind at the moment, and it happened to be in New York City.
My roommates and classmates were from all over: Colombia, Chile, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, México, Perú. It was the first time that I was confronted with other varieties of my native language. We all understood each other, we were all reading and writing in Spanish but we all had different accents, we would call the same thing differently (guagua, colectivo, autobús), and –more interestingly– we would have expressions or names for things that didn’t exist in other (American) places. We were all uprooted, dislocated, but our mother tongues would always trace the way back home.
They would unveil where we were from, and where we were.
They would unveil that we have two ways of being: the difference between SER and ESTAR.
It was in that context of otherness that I learned the most about myself, my culture, mi lengua, mi identidad. In contrast with my classmates, I became more Argentinean, or rather I realized I was Argentinean. I became more aware of my nationality than ever before. In contrast with the country where we were (the U.S.), I enhanced my Latin Americanity. My classmates and all the immigrants around me –with whom I quickly engaged in a language community– were the same. We shared our mother tongue, shared our history. We were all subjects of the same empire.
What I’m trying to say is: I noticed my Argentinean identity in contrast with my other Latin American peers, and I noticed my Latin-American identity in contrast with the United Statesian culture.
Applicant
Now it is January of 2023 and in a couple of weeks I will have to take the Naturalization Test to become a U.S. citizen. I am studying the list of 100 questions that the USCIS(3) provides to applicants as a study guide for the Civics Test.
I applied for citizenship six months ago because I became eligible, after three years of being a green card holder (or “lawful permanent resident”).
In US English, a “green card holder” is a permanent resident that has been granted authorization to live and work in the United States on a permanent basis. I was eligible for a green card after I married Jamil, a U.S. citizen. I met him – my (African) American husband – in 2010 when I was a lawful alien in New York City. I had a foreign student visa, meaning I was only allowed to work on campus.
In (USCIS) English alien means foreigner, non-resident, non-native, outsider, stranger (danger).
Testing
I keep thinking what would the test be like to become Argentinean: What would be the questions? What would be omitted? What would be highlighted? The dictatorship(s)? The Malvinas War? How many Nazis fled to Argentina after WW2?
What is hidden and what is highlighted as part of the American history?
What am I learning about the United Statesian (American) culture with this test? What am I learning about? What am I not?
I am deconstructing my identity as much as I am trying to deconstruct the language in this exam. I notice some recurrent words and expressions in the test and its study materials.
Memory matter(s)
Interestingly, the study materials that the USCIS provides to applicants not only include the list of 100 questions but also their answers. I don’t need to do any research on my own if I don’t know the answer for a question. No critical thinking needed. I just need to memorize the correct answer provided. Most questions have two or three possible correct responses. (Is memorizing learning in U.S. culture?)
I’m learning my lines as an actress, I’m learning my cues, I’m learning to perform as a United Statesian(4) (American).
I notice some syntagmatic relations between the most recurrent words in the study materials. For example, the word “free,” as in “free-market” or as part of the word “freedom” or “freed,” is always close to “slave,” “slavery,” or “economic reasons,” as in question 73:
Name one problem that led to the Civil War.
▪ slavery
▪ economic reasons
▪ states’ rights
It seems implied that one can only be “free,” if one lives in a free market economy. Slavery, according to the USCIS, was more a financial conflict than a human rights matter.
This historical erasure has a very present echo in the American educational system.
Right now there are over 2,500 books banned in the United States. Virtually all of them talk about issues of gender and/or race.(5) Many of them are autobiographical texts or memoirs. These first person narratives question the (government regulated) official story of this country. Those forbidden, silenced words are loudly dangerous.
People
Question 3 of the Civics Test reads: The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words? Correct answer: We the People.
I wonder who is “we” and who can define its meaning. A “we” that seems inclusive but it is actually exclusive. Not all people are “we.”
My follow up question would be: Who is considered “people” in this country? Am I? My kids? Are people crossing the border? Are children in cages people? And their parents? People? Bad people? What about Black incarcerated men? We?
People is used also as a synonym of “colonist.” According to the test the “colonists” were the first settlers, the people who fought for independence, the People who wrote the constitution. The founding fathers were colonists.
According to the Oxford Language dictionary, a colonist is “a settler in or inhabitant of a colony.”
There’s a skillful use of the word “colonist” instead of “colonizer” throughout the test. Colonists are considered heroes not colonizers. According to the test, the Europeans arrived in this country (not the colonists) (I guess they became colonists after being invaders and murderers), but they did actually occupy someone else’s land. There is acknowledgment of that occupation in the test as well. Question 59 reads:
Who lived in America before the Europeans arrived?
Correct answers are:
▪ American Indians ▪ Native Americans(6)
Colonists murdered and tortured Native Americans without obeying any law or moral or rules of their countries of origin. What is the difference between colonist, colonizer, settler, patriot, murderer, hero, and founding father? If we are the children of our founding fathers, who are our founding mothers?
The founding myth of our conception is that we are children of fathers only, as if the mother —the matter— were not needed for the reproduction of our species. We are pure children of the patriarchy.
The Performance of Language
How to do things with words?
How much are we acting when we say “I am?”
How much are we saying when we act like “I am?”
To talk about identity is to talk about the words I use to retell my story.
To talk about identity is to talk about words.
The words I have to name others and me.
To name “me.”
I feel so not like myself thinking and writing in English.
This performance of language I am performing now.
The words in which I tell myself.
What I tell others it’s “me.”
Rodriguez
Yesterday I had my Civics Test. Jamil and I were the only ones at the USCIS office at 7:45am. At 8AM, my appointment time, officer Rodriguez called my name and asked me to follow him to his office. I was internally smiling, not only about the fact that a fellow Latino was about to test me on American history, but also that his last name was the same as Juan Rodriguez. That other Rodriguez, who arrived in the Hudson Harbor in 1613, was a crewmember of a Dutch ship that set sail from La Española, Rodriguez’ place of origin (now Dominican Republic). When the ship returned to Holland, Rodriguez decided to stay. There is evidence that proves that he lived with the Natives for at least one year, making him the first non-indigenous settler. He was the first immigrant in New York. He was Latino. He came from a mixed-race and mixed-culture society. He was born to a Portuguese sailor and a West African mother. He was Dominican. He was Black. He was a free man. He was a father. He was a translator, an interpreter. He was a tradesman.
In a country with the second largest population of Spanish speakers worldwide, in a city with the biggest population of Hispanic families in the US, the almost unknown story of Juan Rodriguez is itself a tale: a tale of erasure, of political decisions that created a narrative about the identity of New Yorkers (and United Statesians) as something other from what Rodriguez represents, as something other than Black and Latino.
Perform
Rodriguez asked me six questions:
1-What is an amendment?
2-What is the name of the President of the United States now?
3-What is the name of the Vice President of the United States now?
4-What did Susan B. Anthony do?
5-What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?
6-Who is the Commander in Chief of the military?
I answered them all correctly so he informed me I have passed the Civics Test. Then he asked me to write down a sentence that he said out loud. Then I had to read aloud a sentence from a screen. I passed the English test.
Next, officer Rodriguez asked me some personal questions about my life in the U.S. like where I was working, my husband’s name and date of birth, my kids’ names and dates of birth. Then he moved on to some standard questions that were also in my application form; a long list of questions that starts with “Have you EVER…?”, and that you are supposed to repeatedly say “no.” Out of all those weird inquiries, there was this one:
Have you EVER been a member of, or in any way associated (either directly or indirectly) with:
- The Communist Party?
- Any other totalitarian party?
- A terrorist organization?
And even though my honest and true answer is “no” to all three, I wonder what would happen if I say: “yes, I am part of the Communist Party.” It is implied in these study materials that a communist is a terrorist. It is implied (by omission) that the far right and white supremacists are not a threat to the country, to the People, as if they didn’t exist, there’s no acknowledgment.
In my experience as a South (American), I learned that all the dictatorships and totalitarian genocidal governments that ruled during the 70’s and 80’s in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and ALL across Latin America were ALL strongly capitalist, racist, sexist, homophobic, and Catholic. They were ALL strongly connected to the U.S.; they were ALL trained and sponsored by the C.I.A. They were ALL making sure that each country implemented a “free-market” economy that would allow the U.S to bring in all their big corporations and make loads of money for a handful of people. With the exception of Cuba, ALL the dictatorships in Latin America strove to implement a capitalist economy. It was the right wing that kidnapped, tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of people in my wounded (Latin) American continent.
In America, capitalism was never elected, it was imposed on its people through violence. By becoming a US citizen and by answering these questions in the way that I am being prompted to answer, I do not want to be part of this historical silence, of this collective oblivion taught as part of the American identity.
Assimilation
Reading some articles about the process of naturalization, I found out that, during Trump’s administration, a USCIS initiative historically called the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program became the Citizenship and Assimilation Grant Program. I realized that’s the word that defines my fear. I don’t want to be an assimilated US citizen and I fear that is the only way to become a US citizen, a part of my identity has to be forgotten and erased. I (/We) have to disremember where I (/we) came from in order to fully be here. I have to forget the difference between SER and ESTAR in order to be; let slip from my memory some words (/ideas), to make room for new ones in the language that I am living in now.
I have been living in New York for more than twelve years, almost as long as I have lived with Jamil. English became the language of our home in Brooklyn. On the last trip we made to Buenos Aires before our children were born, Jamil and I stayed in a hotel for the first time. I don’t know how much the fact that we were staying in a hotel in “my” city had to do with it, or how much with the fact that I was occupying the tourist circuit where I should be “a local;” but one afternoon, I went out alone to buy something and when I got to the corner, I saw a lady crossing the street distracted, not realizing that a truck was turning very fast and right in her direction. So I yelled at her: “CAREFUL!,” just like that in English first, and then “¡CUIDADO!” Luckily, that was enough for the lady to take a step back, insult the driver, and then make it safely across the street. Something about that moment, about that linguistic “slip,” was very disturbing to me, perhaps even uncanny: why, if I was in Buenos Aires, in a well-known neighborhood, among native speakers, did I first shout in English? Where was my head at that moment? Who was I then? What territories was I inhabiting?
Lengua materna
I have always spoken Spanish to my children, since the day they were born. They speak only Spanish with me, English with their dad, and they play with each other in Spanish too. With the advent of motherhood, in 2016, Spanish became my home language again. Even though our kids are bilingual (and super chatty), my four years old daughter has been diagnosed with selective mutism: she doesn’t speak at all while at school. She is able to play and communicate with some friends and teachers just by nodding, crying, laughing and/or pointing at things. All the specialists agree that it is an anxiety disorder. As soon as I heard that, I thought: it’s my fault, I have conveyed my anxiety to her, all those feelings of not belonging, of being an outsider, and, at the same time, not wanting to assimilate. Even though a part of me will always feel guilty of any discomfort she experiences, I am also noticing, appreciating and learning so much from her uniqueness. How brave do you have to be not to respond nor behave the way everyone expects you to?
Now I see her silence as a form of resistance, of not assimilating into the soup of expectations, not melting into that pot. Forever, the idea of immigration in this country, the right kind, was to be part of the “melting pot.”(7) That metaphor implies that only through assimilation can you become a US citizen: blend in, no chunks allowed, don’t be too dark, don’t be different; just melt into this white homogeneous Anglophone capitalist Catholic patriarchal soup.
In US English, my kids are considered “heritage speakers” because they learned Spanish at home, not in school. That makes their Spanish unofficial, not government regulated. Spanish is their mother tongue. But we know they are truly native speakers of both languages, as they were born in a bilingual household, in a bilingual and multicultural country, just like Rodriguez. I also know they probably look and sound a lot like him, they have an accent from all the Americas.
The Politics of Language
Words without borders
Borders without words
Out of words at the border
The border between SER and ESTAR
I am in a foreign language.
“I am” in a foreign language.
Identity as a verb, as a translation, as a transnation.
I am here and I am now.
The location where I speak from.
Every time I say “I”
I’m saying something different(ly).
Arms
“If the law requires it, are you willing to bear arms for the US?” The only possible answer to that question is: yes. I was asked that question in writing in my application form, and officer Rodriguez asked me, again, orally, after having passed all the other tests. The bellicose question was the hardest one to answer because I don’t believe in violence as a way of solving anything. I found out after the fact that if you present evidence that for religious reasons you can’t bear arms, then maybe the USCIS would take a “no” as an answer.
Before I left his office he gave me a paper with the time and date for my Oath Ceremony. He told me it was a very important event and he added: “you are renouncing your Argentinean.” Just like that. He made a noun out of my demonym.
Oath
Between the day of my Civic Test and the day of my Oath Ceremony I did some more research on what to expect regarding that performative speech act.(8) I had no idea what The Oath was about and/or if I would be asked any personal questions again. After some googling, I found out that during the ceremony, I’d have to swear my allegiance to the United States and then receive my naturalization certificate. At first I thought I was going to be asked to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, like my kids do in their school every day, but no. The pledge for applicants for naturalization is a little different and, of course, more bellicose. So there it was that difficult sentence again: “I will bear arms on behalf of the United States…” This time, when I saw the phrase written on my screen, I realized that “bear” is also de word for “oso” (the heavy mammal that walks on the soles of its feet), and that “arms” could also be translated as “brazos” (as in “upper limbs”). So I said to myself: if I have to say this out loud again, I will just think of brazos de oso.
Talking back
I keep thinking why am I writing this essay in English, why am I thinking this essay in English, why am I doing this essay. What am I essaying? bell hooks’ essay keeps coming to my mind. In her childhood, she was taught that “talking back” meant speaking as an equal to an authority figure and daring to disagree and/or have an opinion. She uses the verb “to bear” differently, she writes: “I write these words to bear witness to the primacy of resistance struggle in any situation of domination (even within family life); to the strength and power that emerges from sustained resistance and profound conviction that these forces can be healing.” For her and me, writing is “a gesture of defiance that heals,” an act of speech, mi manera de hacer cosas con palabras.
Learning to talk back
To recite
To voice
To make oneself be heard
To make it sound
To say it loud
I can hear her
A voice to be read out loud
To write to be heard
Speak up to be read
Like reciting poems at Sunday afternoon church service.
The luxurious activity of writing
The privilege of reading
The right to be heard
Writing as an act of speech
The performance of languaging
Writing as healing
The odd talk
The many punishments
Of talking a silence
To write “I am” as an act of creation
I am: I evoke and
I invoke.
Notes:
- In 1492, in his Prologue to Grammar of the Castilian Language Nebrija wrote: “language was always the companion of empire, and followed it such that together they began, grew, and flourished—and, later, together they fell.”
- Quizás es también un volver, un volverme sobre mí misma, expandirme y explorar el significado completo de esa palabra: Americana, más americana, más yo, más todes, más identidad compartida, de norte a sur, unir los dos bordes del continente.
- USCIS stands for U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services.
- Every time I write “United Statesian” in this document, the word processor underlines it in red as an error. It doesn’t belong to the (English) dictionary.
- Pen America has a full report on the growing movement to censor books in schools: https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/
- I notice the use of the demonym in both answers. In Argentina there is no such expression, at least not in the context of a civic test. No one would say “indio argentino” or, even less likely, “nativo argentino.” The politically accepted expression is “pueblos originarios.” I wonder how that would translate into English: original people? original towns? original folk?
- According to my friend Tory, a “melting pot” is a big pot of bubbling cheese sauce made from Velveeta (a food product manufactured by Kraft).
- “Speech acts” or “actos de habla” are types of verbs that rather than merely transmit information, are used to do something or produce some effect in the world. I believe they were first described by John L. Austin in his book: How to Do Things with Words?
Mariana Graciano (Argentina, 1982) studied Literature and Linguistics at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, completed a master’s degree in creative writing at New York University and a Ph.D at The Graduate Center (CUNY), New York, where she has been teaching literature and writing workshops since 2010. Her work has appeared in journals in Argentina, the United States and Spain. Her first book of stories La visita (Demipage, 2013) earned the recognition of Talento Fnac in Spain. Its second second edition and translation were published in the US in 2023 by Alliteration. Her nouvelle Pasajes has two editions in Spanish (Chatos Inhumanos y Baltasara) and one in English. In 2018 she received the Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC) Artist-in-Residence Award, and in 2021 the Pace University Book Completion Award. Her third book, an epistolary memoir, O ar / The Air, was published in 2022 in Argentina by Metropolis Libros and in 2023 in the US by Chatos Inhumanos. O ar also received an Honorable Mention at the International Latino Book Awards 2023. Author ‘s website: www.marianagraciano.com