This a piece I wrote a long time ago and I think it never got published anywhere (not as far as I can remember) so here it is:
Learn English! Learn Spanish! Learn French!
Brightly colored billboards dot highways, city streets, town alleys all over the world. They promise you a job, a better life, the entire world in an unreasonable span of time. Their lurid colors and bold fonts mask the dismalness of your life and firmly position language as your exit path to the promised land. Language, not for love, not for life, but to escape.
I’ve always loved languages, because they allow me to lament. To lament the loss that was given to me in my childhood and has carried me all the way to my adulthood. This is the companion of a lifetime, more constant than any loves and hatreds. At this point in my life I have lost an entire country and several cities and the counting hasn’t stopped. Of course, I must not be unfair. If I look at the scorecard, there are countless additions as well. Researchers claim that women have a richer vocabulary than men; feel free to blame my voraciousness on that. All I ask is that you allow me to put you in the category of people who need gender binaries to navigate the world. A stereotype for a stereotype is only fair.
Learn English! Learn Spanish! Learn French!
Brightly colored billboards dot highways, city streets, town alleys all over the world. They promise you a job, a better life, the entire world in an unreasonable span of time. Their lurid colors and bold fonts mask the dismalness of your life and firmly position language as your exit path to the promised land. Language, not for love, not for life, but to escape.
I’ve always loved languages, because they allow me to lament. To lament the loss that was given to me in my childhood and has carried me all the way to my adulthood. This is the companion of a lifetime, more constant than any loves and hatreds. At this point in my life I have lost an entire country and several cities and the counting hasn’t stopped. Of course, I must not be unfair. If I look at the scorecard, there are countless additions as well. Researchers claim that women have a richer vocabulary than men; feel free to blame my voraciousness on that. All I ask is that you allow me to put you in the category of people who need gender binaries to navigate the world. A stereotype for a stereotype is only fair.
