My name is Unknown Mami and I am my mother’s daughter.
My mother was born in Mexicali, Mexico. I am 38 years old so I can say with a certain amount of certainty that my mother has lived in this country for at least 38 years, more I’m sure, but I can only attest to 38. She speaks English with some success, but she has a thick accent that makes many who are not used to letting an accent wash over them and soak in have a hard time understanding her.
I always understand my mother because I know how she speaks in Spanish so I can make the leaps sometimes necessary to get to where she is going in English. Even though I am fine with her having an accent and her creative use of the English language there are some things I will never get used to.
When she says, “Eat esmells like a fark een here!” people around her are left wondering what the hell she is talking about. This is when I usually say, “FART, Ama! It’s FART, not farK!” She ignores me and goes on to say, “Did SHE fark?” referring to my husband, “Mama, HE did not FART. We know it was you. Can you please stop FARTing and blaming it on other people? And HE is a HE not a SHE!”
The flip side of my mother’s English language skills it that she does not always understand things. She misses nuances. One year she sent me a card just to let me know that she was missing me. It was a very sweet and appropriate card, if I was her LOVER!
The card had a picture of a woman on the beach.
On the outside it said, “I miss you with all my heart…”
And on the inside, “…and with every other part of my body you have ever touched.”
Ugh! With her womb? Did she miss me with her womb? This was not the type of card you send to a daughter.
When I called to let her know I had gotten the card, she was all excited and asked me if I thought it was nice. When I explained to her in Spanish what the card was actually intimating, her feelings got hurt and I wished I had just said thank you.
Some things get lost in translation, but the love never does.
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