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Michael Rosales
Senior
especialización: español y educación secundaria
iniciado el 13 de noviembre 2011

As someone of Latino descent who did not learn Spanish at home, but rather in the classroom, I feel that I have had a fairly unique experience in regards to my use of the language. Although I did not grow up capable of speaking and comprehending the language, I was still exposed to the language fairly regularly due to my father’s influence.  When I was younger, he would take me with him whenever he needed to translate for a friend or acquaintance at the lawyer’s or doctor’s office.  It was my duty to read any paperwork orally in English so he could translate what I said to his friends.  As the years passed and my fluency improved, I began to receive occasional calls from his friends and my own coworkers in my hometown asking me to translate or provide rides somewhere.

In the Bloomington-Normal area I have exercised my bilingual abilities for the past two years tutoring predominantly Hispanic teens that are bilingual or English language learners at the Western Avenue Community Center.  For a brief period of time I was a member of a local grassroots organization called Latinos United for Change or Latinos unidos para cambio; which is a fairly liberal group dedicated to promoting economic justice and protecting the rights of local immigrants by lobbying to stop deportations and non-immigrant friendly legislation.  I have also improved my Spanish speaking abilities at the university’s Spanish Club whenever the club’s meeting time did not conflict with my class schedule for the semester.

Outside of Illinois, I volunteered with an organization called No More Deaths during Spring Break.  No More Deaths is an organization, based out of Tucson, AZ, that is dedicated to stopping death and suffering in the Sonoran desert near the U.S.-Mexico border.  One of No More Deaths’ activities includes interviewing deportees on the Mexican side of the border and documenting cases of both physical and sexual abuse that occur during the detainment and deportation process.  During my time with NMD I volunteered with the desert project.  This project entailed taking daily hikes throughout the desert searching for people in need of medical attention, while leaving behind canned beans, gallons of water, blankets, and dry socks.  Due to my being the only Spanish major in my camp of fifteen volunteers, I was designated as the main translator and teacher of useful Spanish phrases for the group.  Through my conversations with some of the migrants I learned that most of them had been walking for three days without sleep due to the risk of being seen during the day and the cold of the desert at night.  The cold was severe enough that one of my fellow volunteers made the mistake of sleeping without socks one night and woke up with frostbitten toes the next morning.  The satisfaction of replacing a traveler’s tainted light green water with a fresh gallon and providing someone with a hot meal for the first time in days is an experience that I will not soon forget.