Bianca Munoz-Cruz

Mr. Campbell
September 28, 2014

Religion humiliation
As the common misconception on being bilingual is that your can either speak and
or write in another language. In many cases thats true, but the learning process is
actually difficult because of constant reminders of reading or writing guidelines from
your primary language.
Its funny to say that will all the ESL classes I've been put in through elementary
and middle school, I had yet to do any writing or reading in Spanish. I always imagine
that I would but it never happened. Then again the purpose of ESL class was to make
sure we understood English. Even though I did consider myself bilingual, I came to
realize that I can honestly only speak Spanish since thats the way I was first introduced
to it.
My religious background is Catholic and with that there are specific sacraments
you must take part in. These sacraments were baptism, communion, reconciliation,
confirmation, marriage, holy order and last anointing of the sick. Since I was baptized as
a baby, my next step was communion. So my mother signed me up for classes at the
church that weve been going to for a year (since we had recently moved states). I wasn't
excited about it because I didn't know this church as much as our old one and the classes
were early Saturday mornings!
I remember the first time I was brutally introduced to reading and writing in
Spanish. First day of communion class was like starting up school all over again. Except,

in the church, there was only one main space where mass normally took place. I
remember asking my mom where the classrooms would be only to realize she was
confused too! We both noticed how there were folding walls around dividing up into
groups and attached to them were a piece of paper with a name on it. We didn't mind the
folding walls but all we kept getting from the adults there were blank facial expressions
as though a deer looking at headlights. Receiving this kind of expression made me even
more nervous about the class. None of the less, I just wanted to run back to the car and go
home.
As I headed towards the main entrance, a tall, skinny young man came up to my
mom saying if she found my teacher. It turns out to be that he WAS my teacher. Our
group was all the way at the back right corner, which made me feel more comfortable
because it was more isolated. Before my left the church so I can go to class," she pulled
aside the teacher to inform him that my reading and writing in Spanish isn't the best. He
reassured him that Ill be fine and will learn that along the way. The first fifteen minutes
was an easy speaking introduction. This I managed to approach with my confidence.
Next came the reading through a chapter of our communion textbook and everyone had
to read a whole page aloud. To make things fair, our teacher had us read based upon our
seating order, starting at one end, all the way down to the other. This is perfect I
thought to myself. I going to be third to last to read and the page isn't all that long, I
kept repeating to myself. As the moment came closer and closer, all that I was able to
think about is how quick these other kids are reading! Next thing I knew, my hands were
sweaty and everyone caught me staring down at the book when I was actually so zoned
out. The teacher called out my name to read the next page. Okay, calm down, you can

do this I told myself before reading.

Out of the 5 paragraphs on the page, I was able to read 2 1/2 paragraphs with the
help to pronounce a few words. I ket getting discourage when I couldn't pronounce the
words right. My face got tomato red, my feet crossed under my seat so I would run off
and my fingers as though knotted together. I was happy that the guy next to me offered to
read the rest as long as I followed along mouthing the words. After the reading I was
pretty convinced that we wouldn't have to read anything else. Our next activity was to
arrange terms that suited the disciples the best in pairs. With my luck, I was paired up
with the guy that helped me out with the reading. He made sure I understood why each
term belonged to each individual. Now it was time for us to write our 3 terms to each
disciple on the board. I was chosen to write the terms on the board and it would have
been easy except we didn't physically see the words, we just discussed it. I tried my
hardest to sound it out and write it like I do with English but it was no Help. I kept
getting the E and I mixed up as well as the O and U. All I hear behind me were the others
sounding out the word so I can write it or saying the letter I should write down.