Embracing my heritage: I’m learning Spanish to honor family and connect with my roots | Opinion

One of my greatest regrets in my life is growing up in a Latino household and not being able to speak Spanish, something now, in my 60s, I am going to change.

I am taking Spanish classes two nights a week. If you ask me to translate, “what is in the classroom?” or “what is the weather outside?” I can tell you in Spanish. It may not be much, but it’s a starting point and to me, more personal than fumbling around with my phone’s translation app.

I believe this is a great way to honor my parents and also my Latina heritage during Hispanic Heritage Month.

My mother and father spoke Spanish. Their parents came from Mexico in the early 1900’s. They came to work on the railroad during WWI. I was second generation born in the United States. My mom sometimes spoke it to my Tia, my aunt and my mom’s sister, when she didn’t want me or my brothers to know what she was talking about.

But she purposefully didn’t teach it to us to spare us the pain of discrimination and prejudice she felt as a young girl.

“Growing up in Armourdale was hard,” my mother, Dolores Lopez, said teachers in school were mean to her and her friends when they heard them speak Spanish. They told her not to speak Spanish in the United States. Mom wanted us to speak English. No accent. It was the same for many of my friends.

But as I’ve matured, mingling deeply and for decades with Kansas City’s Hispanic community, I’ve realized what a loss it is not being bilingual. I get by with Spanglish, cobbling together bits of Spanish and English, but it’s not enough to hold a conversation.

I realize how much I missed out on being able to talk to my grandparents. My grandmother was a fantastic cook. What wouldn’t I give to be able to ask about her recipes, listen to her stories of growing up in Mexico, asking about how she did it raising 12 kids, getting up early every day making dozens of tortillas daily for the family and so much more. I have so many questions about our family. They’re questions that I have no answers to.

I am glad that I made sure my son, Davin, now 34, is bilingual. He attended Kansas City’s Foreign Language Academy. He took Spanish in high school and in college. Not only was it useful in the job market, it’s made his life richer, more open, more diverse and interesting.

My parents and grandparents are gone now. The opportunity to talk to them in Spanish is lost, but there are other opportunities out there.

The U.S. Census says that 10% of people in Jackson County identify as Hispanic, 8% of Johnson County and fully 33% of Wyandotte County. That’s nearly 200,000 people in just three counties. Many more know the language.

Slowly but surely, I’m going to be one of them.

Lisa Lopez is the executive administrative to the editor at The Kansas City Star.