Tongue Shakers: Interviews and Narratives on Speaking Mother Tongue in a Multicultural Society

Tongue Shakers

Interviews and Narratives

on Speaking Mother Tongue

in a Multicultural Society

Margie Shaheed

Hamilton Books

An Imprint of

Rowman & Littlefield

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Copyright © 2017 by Hamilton Books

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

Hamilton Books Acquisitions Department (301) 459-3366

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street,

London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016940153

ISBN: 978-0-7618-6805-7 (pbk : alk. paper)—ISBN: 978-0-7618-6806-4 (electronic)

Cover art by James J. Polacci and Denise Polacci DePalma.

™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

I dedicate this book to my grandsons

Yusef, Halim, Nasir, Achilles and Jabari (in memoriam)

for giving the world and me hope;

to Stanford Lewis for loving me

and teaching me how to be a wild cat;

and to Askia Toure for leading the way.

"Some folks is born wid they feet on de sun

and they kin seek out de inside meanin’ of words."

—Zora Neale Hurston

Acknowledgments

This book would not be possible if it were not for all of the individuals who allowed me to interview them for this project. I thank them for trusting me, giving me access, and for teaching me so much. I spent hours in the library requesting research materials and using public access computers and study rooms to do my writing and transcribing of tapes. In this regard, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff of the Memphis Public Library (Whitehaven branch) and the staff of the East Cleveland Public Library for graciously honoring my many requests and creating an environment conducive to getting my work done.

As the project progressed it became necessary for me to travel. I would like to acknowledge and thank the following individuals for contributing funds which enabled me to take a research trip to Houston, Texas to interview the Valencia family: Dr. Nancy Gerber, Janet Minnieweather, Donna Carrigano, Alberta Drake, Aldo and Anna Tambellini, Lori Johnson, DJ Tony Motley, Lori Jackson, Steven Metoyer, James Polacci, Adrienne Metoyer, Lorraine Currelley, Shirley Nelson, Charlene Fix, Sherlynn Allen-Harris, Gry Hala, Dr. Voris Glasper and Vince Robinson.

I am truly indebted to my inner circle of mentors, intellectuals and scholars who stimulate and challenge my thinking. Foremost, I would like to thank Stanford Lewis for his unfaltering support 24/7 and for being the resident scholar; Dr. Mary E. Weems for reading my manuscript and giving me sound scholarly advice; Askia Toure for being the standard; and finally, I thank Dr. Nancy Gerber, my former Rutgers professor, for reading and editing my manuscript, and for standing with me over the years, believing in my work, even when I did not—I am forever your student.

Introduction

Tongue Shakers: Interviews and Narratives on Speaking Mother Tongue in a Multicultural Society is a book exploring the lives of immigrants, Americans born into immigrant families, and African Americans on the topic of speaking mother tongue in America’s multicultural society. I was curious to know the challenges people faced as speakers of a language other than English in a society where English dominates. Although constitutionally the United States has no national official language, American English has been the de facto official language for over 240 years. I have included African Americans in this project as well because even though blacks have embraced English as their native tongue, still the African cultural set persists, that is, a predisposition to imbue the English word with the same sense of value and commitment . . . accorded African culture. (Smitherman, 1977 p. 79)

My work continues in the tradition of the work of Zora Neale Hurston (1901-1960), African-American novelist, dramatist and cultural anthropologist. Mules and Men, which remains her primary expression of the extensive anthropological research and collecting of folktales (1927-1932) was not published until 1935. Its publication was historically important, the first book of Afro-American folklore collected by a black American to be presented by a major publisher for a general reading audience. (Hemenway, 1978, p. xviii) Although it was considered an unscientific work by scholars such as Franz Boas, it was believed it would have value as a reference book. Hurston’s writing technique falls somewhere between scientific reporting and personal journalism, producing a repeated pattern of experience. (Hemenway, 1978, 167) Hurston’s unique contribution validates Black speech as a serious form of spoken expression worthy of study and preservation.

I first became inspired by Hurston’s work while taking undergraduate courses at Fordham University and Rutgers University in cultural anthropology and English with a concentration in writing. While studying both disciplines I was confronted with the genius of Hurston—Mules and Men in anthropology and Their Eyes Were Watching God in African-American literature. What struck me most about Hurston’s work was that she defied tradition refusing to separate from ordinary people choosing to study her own culture from the inside out. She was motivated in such a way that she went out and did the field work, the first African-American woman to do so. In this regard it’s important to note that Hurston performed this work reserved for graduate students of anthropology without having first earned a graduate degree although a scholarship enabled her to enter Barnard College, where she received her B.A. in 1928.

Concerned with the history and condition of Black Americans Hurston spent her lifetime writing about rural southern Blacks because it was the world she knew best. Although my inquiry includes multicultural perspectives, my work, like Hurston’s, captures and honors the spoken language of ordinary people as told in their own words without the restraints and rigor of the academy. One of my mentors, Dr. Mary E. Weems, calls me an intercultural global anthropologist.

Hurston was working at a time when the United States was segregated, which some could say worked to her advantage because she had access to the brightest Black minds and scholarship of the time. At Howard University faculty included E. Franklin Frazier, Alain Locke, and Carter G. Woodson. She was awarded a research fellowship from Carter G. Woodson who was the leading Black historian in America, which enabled her to leave New York City in late February of 1927 to collect folktales in her hometown of Eatonville, Florida. During her expedition she reported to and consulted with Woodson on a regular basis. As well, she had other brilliant Black minds to confer with such as W.E.B. Du Bois, who ultimately proved to be the intellectual godfather of the Harlem Renaissance, and she received scholarly guidance from her former professor at Howard University, Rhodes Scholar, Alain Locke.

Hurston’s positive relationship with Black scholars does not in any way diminish the positive student/professor/mentor relationship she had with white anthropologist Franz Boas in spite of segregation. To the contrary, her undergraduate studies with him at Columbia University legitimized her work as an anthropologist and proved to be instrumental in developing the required discipline essential to becoming a serious writer and a respected social scientist. Hurston made important discoveries about her own culture namely that it was something worthy of scholarly study. At the time, Franz Boas was the foremost anthropologist in the country in this branch of social science in its infancy stages. In a personal letter to Boas requesting that he write the introduction to Mules and Men Hurston writes, So I hope that the unscientific matter that must be there for the sake of the average reader will not keep you from writing the introduction (Hemenway 1978, p. 163-164). Boas granted her request only after checking the manuscript for authenticity (164).

Tongue Shakers is written for general audiences and the average reader. I, too, have been most fortunate to count scholars and intellectuals, including those from my time at Rutgers University as friends and mentors who have stimulated me and steered me in the right direction. Dr. Nancy Gerber, my former professor, regularly reads and edits my manuscripts, and as always my mentors give me useful comments and professional advice. I also share Zora’s profession as a creative writer. I have published poems and short stories in literary journals and I have three chapbooks of poetry in print.

I began interviewing people for this project three years ago. I have interviewed 100 individuals from urban neighborhoods located in the American South (Memphis and Ft. Meyers), Midwest (Cleveland), West (Houston) and East Coast (Newark, New York, Washington D.C. and Boston). Interviews from 37 of these people are presented in Tongue Shakers 14 men and 23 women ages 16 to 81 years old. The experience for me has been rewarding and a journey of discovery. I found people to interview as I normally went about my day. I started the practice of carrying my tape recorder, camera, notebook, questions and release forms with me daily so that I would be prepared at any moment to conduct an interview. If I heard someone speaking in an accent I would politely approach them and introduce myself as a writer working on an exciting project. I explained my project to them and asked if I could interview them. For the most part my narrators have been strangers whom I have encountered on the city streets of America. In some cases I was granted an interview on the spot so if this happened we found a quiet place like a coffee shop, park or the library to do the interview. At other times I may have caught someone who was on their way to work or trying to make another appointment, so we exchanged telephone numbers and arranged to meet at a later time, usually at a public place in the city.

Once the project was well underway I took several trips for the purpose of interviewing people. I found people on the East Coast to be more receptive and willing to talk me about themselves. People in the South were more apprehensive. All of my trips proved fruitful and I am still amazed at all of the people who let me interview them for this project. Of all of my trips the one to Houston stands out. It was hosted by the Valencia family who immigrated to the United States from Colombia in the early 1960s. My contact for the family was the daughter Vilma. She invited me to stay for one week in the home she shares with the family’s matriarch her eighty-one year old mother Jesusita Valencia. I had the opportunity to meet and interview Vilma’s siblings Myriam, George and Harold as well.

Vilma’s father, Jorge Valencia died in 2014 but his presence is felt through an altar of family pictures in the small room adjacent to the living room. Upon meeting for the first time Mrs. Valencia gave me a great big hug and kiss. I immediately felt comfortable. Their home, which is beautifully furnished with Italian handcrafted furniture, features lovely drapes hand sewn by Mrs. Valencia who is a seamstress by trade. She has a serious green thumb too, because plants adorn the rooms. Spanish language television, radio and Latin music are heard throughout the house at all times. During my stay Mrs. Valencia kept urging me to listen to the news in English. I refused because I wanted to keep the environment as natural as possible and I wanted to experience Spanish in a way in which I hadn’t already.

I learned from my interviews with this family that the Valencias insisted their children speak Spanish only in the home while they were growing up in America, a place that seems at times to promote the idea that we should all speak the same language. George Valencia (Vilma’s oldest brother) gave the example that when he was a little boy if he wanted to ask his parents for a quarter to buy candy he had better do it in Spanish if he wanted positive results. This practice of retaining the mother tongue in the home forged a strong cultural identity and instilled pride in the Valencia children. This family lived a truly bilingual existence in this multicultural society.

What resonates with me about this family is that they had an equal commitment to the culture they left behind and