The following was my process of how I slowly turned the Narrative essay into a new medium, a poem. I bolded the specific lines I incorporated to remain true to the original piece.

Spanish found

Back in elementary school we had an after school program called YMCA. 

Back in elementary, the YMCA

Blue walls boxed us in every day,

Posters talking, made to stall

But still boredom was the loudest of all

The walls were a deep blue, covered in the most motivational posters it seemed they could find. It smelled like crayons and boredom. The counselors constantly smiling should have made me unsettled but instead I was simply irritated. It was meant to be a fu n place to keep us entertained while learning for an extra three hours. I, of course, saw it as an opportunity to make friends with people from other classes just to impress them with the Spanish of my friends and I. 

So I made new friends from the other halls

Just to show off Spanish in those tight walls

Though English was pulling me close this year

My spanish voice still straggled near

Even though I was slowly distancing myself from Spanish, focusing on English, at the time I couldn’t just drop the fluency I had.

One day during the monotony of YMCA, the only thing keeping me awake was the fun to come at snack time. 

So snack time comes along with trading,

Pulparindo and spice smells cascading

Culture and laughter start igniting one flame

All until Autumn steps in the game

All of my friends had special spicy candy as it’s our culture, giving us an edge on trading. During snack time the smell of Pulparindo would fill the air and I’d mediate ongoing trades, sharing my opinion on possible unfairness. Although it didn’t go the way I had hoped, since one girl from the “gifted and talented” program, Autumn, had a different agenda. Instead of wanting to hear English sentences translated into Spanish like the rest of the kids, she instead tried to convince everyone that being accelerated in her studies was much better and smarter than knowing two languages. Autumn and I quickly became the loudest two in the room, Autumn defending learning ahead and I defending Spanish.

Autumn, her English perfect, she’s proud and poised

She claimed she’s smarter with a fluent voice

Spanish is “pointless” she declared

While I defended alone unprepared

We both grew loud and things intense

My words roaring and losing sense

So I turned to my friends but they looked away

And just like that Spanish was casted astray.

 Eyes on us grew with every sentence, people chiming in with their “yea’s” and “she’s got a point”, it was all too much for me. When I turned to look around at my peers for their help they quickly put their heads down, avoiding eye contact to say “I can’t defend you” or maybe “Spanish isn’t worth defending“. My heart broke into two as Autumn nodded as if she won, as the topic of conversation slowly shifted. As I sat in silence I realized my friends weren’t abandoning Spanish, instead their eyes said “My English isn’t good enough to help you” and somehow that was worse.

But this isn’t betrayal, just defeat

Because our English was incomplete.

Yet somehow worse than Autumn’s tone

Was knowing I must fight alone

With everything pushing me away from Spanish at the time, the way I felt now was

different, my face felt hot, suddenly the world was out of focus and all I could see was Autumn

saying Spanish was “pointless“.

My face growing hot, my vision blurred

I started feeling a stab with every word

Yet in that moment of pain a will was born

A vow that my Spanish will not be torn

 At this very moment Autumn had singlehandedly restored my will to keep learning and know both languages. I held onto my family’s language to prove my intelligence, when originally I was forgetting it, excelling in English, to prove my intelligence. 

As I watched Autumn waving her hands as she spoke, no stutter, no slip of her words into another language, no pausing to think of the right words, just confidence in herself, I knew I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to be American Angie, a confident girl, no accent, and no long pauses to think of what words would come next. 

Yet even with this new emerged vow

I couldn’t help look at Autumn, and wow.

She has confidence, fluency, and grace

Oh how I wish to be in her place.

But could this American me really belong?

If I keep the language that once made me strong?

Could two voices really be at peace in one frame?

Can I really hold both without any shame?

Could this American Angie still hold onto the Spanish that made me who I was?