Unit 6.1: Characters Facing Challenges English as a Second Language Text – Gonzalo Gonzalo The older you are, the younger you get when you move to the United States. Two years after my father and I moved here from Guatemala I could speak English. I learned...
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Unit 6.1: Characters Facing Challenges English as a Second Language Text – Gonzalo Gonzalo The older you are, the younger you get when you move to the United States. Two years after my father and I moved here from Guatemala I could speak English. I learned it on the playground and watching lots of TV. Don’t believe what people say—Cartoons make you smart. But my father, he worked all day in a kitchen with Mexicans and Salvadorans. His English was worse than a Kindergartner’s. He would only buy food at the bodega down the block. Outside of there he lowered his eyes and tried to get by on mumbles and smiles. He didn’t want strangers to hear his mistakes. So he used me to make phone calls and to talk to the landlady and buy things in stores where you had to use English. He got younger. I got older. Then my younger brothers and mother and Tio Juan, came north and joined us. Tio Juan was the oldest man in his pueblo. But here he became a little baby. He was a farmer, but here he could not w
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