My Underdevelopment
Martinez, Gabriela C.
PARTY OF THE FUTURE My Underdevelopment GABRIELA C. M ARTfN EZ Ever since I left Puerto Rico to begin my life in New York as a student at Sarah Lawrence College, I have thought of myself in...
...I felt my own underdevel-opment holding me down...
...And to keep my sanity, I began visiting New York, spending my weekends with friends from home In high school, I had disdained English...
...My mother, a translator, helped me learn English...
...Our argument grew worse, and I ended the confrontation by going to the library...
...I started using writing manuals and drastically simplifying my ideas...
...I saw these blue and red corrections as a battle for justice, but now I realize that I was privileged and took it for granted...
...Expressing myself in English and receiving feedback on my writing clarified a realization I'd had in Puerto Rico: in English, I was an average writer...
...But juggling two languages became an issue as soon as I started writing essays...
...When I was a high school student I was so distracted thinking about myself that I forgot about others...
...Gabriela C. Martinez was born in 1989 in San Juan, Puerto Rico...
...While I was voicing these opinions, I was dogging those "surplus English teachers," asking them for letters of recommendation for my college applications—all of which were for schools in the United States...
...But we resumed the argument via text messages...
...When we did peer review in my writing seminar, I received mostly grammar and spelling corrections...
...While other students in my class were developing their style, I was busy trying to make my writing clear...
...I was too easy on myself...
...The discussion in my sociology class, a class I looked forward to, became a tedious battle for proper articulation...
...How was I to become a great nonfiction writer with my average writing skills...
...So much, I now think, for my sense of "giving back" because I was being educated in a good private school...
...My first roommate made everything worse...
...Sometimes I'd skip it and go to the beach...
...It has made me think I may be risking overdevelopment after so many years of fearing underdevelopment...
...It didn't bother me that in my school I was among the first to speak out when it came to criticizing the government of Puerto Rico and the inefficiency of public services...
...One of the things that unsettles me most about people is their inability to sustain a feeling," Sergio says...
...After she discovered I had eaten some of her cookies, she criticized my communication skills...
...It pervaded my struggle to grow up and move beyond the familiar world of family and friends...
...The next day I petitioned for a room change...
...I refrained from making comments unless I planned out what I was going to say...
...To my surprise and delight, I have even begun to study a third language, Russian...
...PARTY OF THE FUTURE My Underdevelopment GABRIELA C. M ARTfN EZ Ever since I left Puerto Rico to begin my life in New York as a student at Sarah Lawrence College, I have thought of myself in comparison to Sergio, the hero of Cuban director Tomas Gutierrez Alea's great movie Memories of Underdevelopment...
...I'm not sure what you are trying to say here," my sociology professor wrote on my first essay...
...Life in college, away from family and friends, has been an enriching experience, but, at the same time, I have had a hard time deciphering which relationships and experiences will make me grow and which I need to discard...
...But in English, self-consciousness kicked in...
...When I speak or write in Spanish I rarely falter, even when I'm nervous...
...culture were an inescapable part of my Puerto Rican heritage...
...During senior year, when I was editor of the literary magazine, I wrote and published an article ranting about the excessive emphasis on English in my high school and how our surplus of English teachers was a reflection of an overall Americanization process that was harming the correct use of Spanish in Puerto Rico...
...I realize that I have nothing to gain by adopting a militant, nationalistic stance against a language that is the same tool Puerto Ricans can use to address their problems and change their lives...
...I can accept this complex situation now...
...As a young, sheltered person, underdevelopment was a reflection of my interior state...
...For me and for many other Puerto Ricans, underdevelopment has a meaning that goes beyond material necessities...
...These days I identify with Albert Camus, who said, "I love my country too much to be a nationalist...
...I don't know how you do things where you're from, but here you are supposed to respect other people's things," she said...
...The combination of reading a lot of Latin American literature, taking Puerto Rican history classes, and spending time with leftist students from the University of Puerto Rico ignited my nationalistic fervor...
...After I enrolled in college, I made nonfiction writing my first course choice...
...In seminars, I had trouble making substantive comments...
...The As and Bs I'd received on research papers in high school obviously hadn't meant much...
...At this time in my life, writing, especially in English, was, I thought, my ticket to a successful future...
...These words have followed me...
...My community service requirement in eleventh grade was to go two times a month to a public school to help children with their classroom assignments...
...She is currently studying in Yaroslavl, Russia, in a program organized by Middlebury College...
...This is one of the main symptoms of under-development: the inability to relate things, to accumulate experience and grow...
...As my command of language failed, I believed less and less in the power of the ideas that I wanted to express...
...It's clear in retrospect that my attitude was a defense mechanism against having to admit that English and U.S...
...I remember her writing corrections in blue ink next to the teacher's corrections, which were in an intimidating bright red...
...But it was a burden...
...Although I knew that speaking English was a great advantage for me, I made a point of emphasizing that it wasn't my first language...
...My nervousness only made things worse...
...When I spoke in English class, I exaggerated my accent and mangled words on purpose...
...It ended when she said, "You should work on your English, your text messages do not make any sense...
Vol. 58 • January 2011 • No. 1
