Twilight is quickly turning to darkness along West Cedar Avenue. Moving a family of six from house to car to grocery store is rarely simple and never swift.
“Vámonos Vámonos!” Let’s go. Let’s go!
Perla Jimenez has assumed the universal teenage position, slumped in the back of her mom’s Oldsmobile station wagon, pretending her family does not exist. Sometimes she can’t decide if they amuse or embarrass her more.
Still, tonight she is happy. It’s been a pretty good birthday so far. Fifteen is going to be OK.
Up front her mother has tuned to ranchera music, turning up the volume on those corny, Spanish love songs. Perla slaps on headphones and fiddles with her new lilac-colored radio/CD player in search of hip-hop.
In the past year Perla has caught up with her mom in height. At 5 feet, 4 inches, they stand shoulder to shoulder. They wear their hair the same.
They swap clothes. They swap roles.
“¿Perla, que es ésto?” Perla, what is this?
When the mail comes, when the phone rings, in the movie line, at the doctor, along the grocery aisles, Yesenia Diaz, 33, steps back and lets her daughter lead. Although she has been in this country 15 years, she does not speak English.
As the first-born of four children, Perla can’t remember a time when she wasn’t her family’s bridge to the English-speaking world, when she didn’t act as translator.
Probably it began in kindergarten. That’s where she learned English. Now she speaks English at school, Spanish at home.
Her father, who no longer lives with the family, doesn’t speak English. Neither does her mother’s boyfriend or the aunt and uncle who camp on the living room’s pullout sofa.
It’s no big deal. Actually it’s kind of cool. She likes that grown-ups depend on her.
It bothers her mother more.
“Soy la madre y se supone que debo más que mis niños.” I’m the parent, and I’m supposed to know more than my children.
At Albertsons they head for the glass case of birthday cakes. They have an hour before Perla’s mom has to start her 7-11 p.m. shift at the laundry.
“Can I help you?” A woman appears from the back. Diaz opens her mouth and begins to sputter. Her face reddens. She knows a few words of English, but never the right ones when she needs them.
“My mom wants to know if you can put a name on the cake?” Perla plucks off her headphones. A seamless transfer of power.
“Sure. What name do you want?”
“Perla.”
“No, no. Perlita!” Little Perla. Diaz tries to reclaim her parental advantage, but the bakery worker is not listening to her.
Phenomenon hardly new
In this nation’s angst over immigration, many think this phenomenon of using children to translate is new. Some call it abuse, forcing adult responsibility on those who are too young.
“As long as there have been immigrants, there have been children who pick up the language first,” says Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, an associate professor of education at the University of California at Los Angeles who studies child translators.
Experts say if a child begins a second language by kindergarten, they will be fluent in both as teenagers. Many adults, on the other hand, never learn.
In Perla’s home, little sister Vanessa knows more English at age 3 than their mother.
What has changed from the days of Ellis Island is how non-English-speakers now are spread throughout the country instead of just entry points.
Such states as California, New Mexico or Texas have the highest non-English speaking populations. But so too do less obvious ones. Rhode Island is ranked ninth; Colorado, 15th.
According to the 2000 Census, nearly one in five people over the age of 5 now speaks a language other than English in their homes. While Spanish is most common, Chinese is second and French third.
Under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, any institution or program that receives federal funds must provide translated materials or find interpreters.
In the real world, though, it doesn’t always happen.
“The skills these kids have are remarkable. They feel proud to be contributing to their families,” says Sheila Shannon, an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Denver and co-author of “Pushing Boundaries: Language and Culture in a Mexicano Community.”
Some time alone
Perla wakes first, just after 6 a.m. She hoists herself off the top bunk and moves silently into the kitchen. It is her one time to be alone in a house with too many inhabitants.
She shares a room with her brothers, ages 13 and 11. She gets the top bunk to herself; they share the bottom. Some nights her little sister joins her. The dresser is split: Matchbox cars on one side, a Strawberry Shortcake calender on the other.
As everyone stirs, Perla moves the procession along. She coaxes her brothers out of bed; wrestles pajamas off her little sister. She slips into the apartment’s only bathroom for a shower.
The dance of bodies moves through the morning routine. Perla’s mother is off to drive her boyfriend to his job as a cook. She will be back in time to take Perla and her brothers to school.
Diaz relies on Perla. Everyone seems to.
“Es difícil porque le da a Perla responsabilidades que no debería tener. Ella necesita vivir su niñez. Me preocupo por ella.” It’s hard because it makes Perla have responsbility she shouldn’t. She needs to live her childhood. It worries me.
When the pilot light on their heater went out, it was Perla who talked to the landlord. When her mother’s boyfriend’s car was stolen and the responding police officers did not speak Spanish, Perla stepped in.
Like a child’s game of telephone, words pass down the line through Perla and then come back again.
Perla tries to teach her mom enough words to get by. Her younger brother, Rudy, sits at the table with the grown-ups and drills them on their ABCs.
Most of the time, Diaz doesn’t need English. Her friends and family speak Spanish. On the job, she works with her hands, not her mouth. The bank machine prompts her in Spanish.
Sometimes she finds herself stranded. Like a few weeks ago, when Rudy had an asthma attack. Usually there are translators at the hospital. On this day, there were none. She thinks she understood most of what the doctor said.
Diaz ran from Mexico to California with Perla’s father when she was 17. He was muy hermoso, very beautiful. He took her dancing. A few weeks after they arrived in this country he began to slap her.
About a year ago, Diaz took their four children and left him. They found a $500-a-month duplex. Her job pays $6.75 an hour. She cleans houses sometimes, for extra money.
On Saturday nights, after her shift ends, the family piles into the aging car and heads into the night. One week they catch a late movie; another time, a shopping trip to an all-night store.
The aisles at the Lakewood Wal-Mart are surprisingly packed at 11 p.m.
“Can we? Can we?” Vanessa tugs at her mother, pointing to a rack of “Lady and the Tramp” DVDs. Diaz shrugs. OK.
Perla heads for the CD aisle.
“Solo uno!” her mother warns. Just one. Diaz has a working mother’s guilt. She likes to treat her children. She likes to see their smiles.
“Éste es el tiempo que les dedico solo a ellos. Algo entretenido.” This is the time I dedicate just to them. Something fun.
Frustration apparent
Perla’s favorite teacher can’t hide his exasperation.
“We’re going to have to talk about this,” says Jason Torrez as social studies begins. Perla failed to turn in a report on Mayan civilizations.
Perla used to go to Baker Middle School, but it closed. At her admissions interview for La Academia, she promised to work hard. She jumped two grade levels in less than a year. Her first report card was all As.
“We grade on growth,” says Todd Clough, principal at the tiny, mostly Latino, private school run on donations.
The school is housed in a converted church. There are no desks, only tables and mismatched chairs.
Roughly 20 percent of the children have a parent who does not speak English. Some have juvenile records. Nearly all are poor. But 80 percent go on to college.
“She’s had duty all her life,” Torrez says. He sees it all the time. Kids, especially the oldest in the family, feel responsible to take care of the others.
“She’s a good girl. She’s bright and intelligent, but she lacks some basic (academic) skills because she has had to be the caretaker,” he says.
Perla scrambles to complete the assignment, but there is no time. She downloads information and turns it in. She knows better.
“This is not your work,” Torrez says, ordering her to do it again. Perla shoves the paper in her notebook. Her face is blank, but her hands tremble.
As the other students file out, Perla silently begins to straighten the classroom. It’s her way, fixing things for everyone else.
Bad girl impersonation
“What are you doing wearing that shirt?” Principal Clough towers over Perla and pretends to be madder than he is.
On Fridays, the students shed uniforms in favor of more personal fashion statements. Perla has picked a striped T-shirt. On it, the words “Bad Girl.”
“You’re the farthest thing I know from a Bad Girl,” he says.
“I just like it.” Perla giggles, hands fluttering to cover her face. She already is in retreat.
Some of the other eighth-grade girls already are talking about “getting with” their boyfriends. Their lips and eyes glimmer with skillfully applied Cover Girl. Their new, grown-up bodies are on display, pushing the dress code to its limit. The boys take notice. They buzz around, talking big, making an impression.
Perla has a boyfriend. Sort of. His name is Donovan. They’ve known each other since sixth grade. They break up, get back together. He taught himself a few words of Spanish so he could talk to Perla’s mother. They are not allowed to be alone together.
Perla’s relationship with her father remains strained and conflicted. She is mad at him. She remembers when she adored him.
“I don’t think all men hit,” she says, “but I still don’t trust guys at all.”
In a few weeks, Perla will celebrate her quinceañera, the traditional rite of passage for Hispanic girls. Perla picked a fairy princess theme. Her dress has enough petticoats to twirl nicely when she dances.
What she doesn’t get is why everyone wants to grow up so fast.
Sometimes, when no one is looking at school, she hops in the hallway. Bouncing, like a bunny, like a little girl, she takes the stairs two at a time.
A homework problem
The evidence is there. Her grades have dropped to Cs and Ds. At the parent-teacher conference, Perla translates the principal’s words about her to her mother.
“Here’s my concern,” says Clough, “Perla did not have the kind of third quarter she is capable of. The big problem is homework. She’s not doing it.”
Diaz eyes widen and then narrow. She had no idea.
“I wasn’t trying, I guess,” Perla offers as explanation. “I guess I was just being lazy.”
“Is there anything else bothering you?” Clough presses Perla in English. Her mother looks from one to the other. She doesn’t understand what they are saying.
Perla begins to cry.
“Everyone is counting on me to get good grades,” she sobs. “Sometimes I think it is too much.”
Suddenly everyone else seems to disappear from the room. It is only Perla and her mother, speaking softly in Spanish.
“¿Sé que tienes mucha presión en éste momento, pero cuando seas mayor, como vas a manejar la presión? Ésto te esta enseñado. Tienes que dar vuelta las cosas. No para mi, pero para ti. Tú lo puedes hacer.” I know there is a lot of pressure on you now, but when you are older, how are you going to handle the pressure? This is teaching you. You have to turn things around. Not for me, but for you. You can do it.
Now it is Clough’s turn to be left out. “What’s she saying, what’s she saying?”
Perla doesn’t seem to hear him. She smiles the smallest of smiles and nods. Under the table she and her mother are holding hands.
Staff writer Jenny Deam can be reached at 303-820-1261 or jdeam@denverpost.com.
