I dedicate this poem to those who without knowing a language have had to speak it.
“Don’t Speak English, I”
by Luis S. González-Acevedo
Father told me, “Tell them…”
“I don’t speak English,”
because I understood the world in Spanish.
On a school day morning and acutely shy –ahem, ahem…
Reinventing grammar, I told them:
“Don’t speak English, I.”
The sentence was only close to right. I could have died!
But like an immigrant who would NOT be defeated,
my courageous little mouth, lips and tongue repeated:
“Jes! Don’t spic English, I.”
–You can find the poem in Caribbean Poet, by Luis S. González-Acevedo–
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