Today I met with Fanny for the third time. Since we hadn't met in a couple weeks due to extenuating circumstances, we began our conversation by catching up. We discussed small events in our lives in the last couple of weeks. She then described to me something I thought was very interesting. She had to cancel last Thursday for our meeting because she got called in by the director of the program she is a part of here at TCU. He had told her it was very important and she needed to be there in order to register for her next term here at TCU as an international student. She went to the meeting and the director told her a teacher had complained about her attitude and rude behavior in classes, and she was of course shocked by this news, since she is just about the sweetest person I've ever met. She told the director "Please let me speak to the professor because if I've offended her, I want to apologize because it was not intentional." He continued to disregard what she was saying and claimed she had been rude in class for quite some time. When the teacher finally arrived in the office, she looked at Fanny and said "This is the wrong student." Fanny was then relieved to find out that she wasn't actually in trouble, however something about this story struck me as wrong.
She said that the actual student in trouble was a much younger Columbian girl in a similar program here at TCU. The teacher, I assume, had gone to the director and said that a "Columbian girl" in her class was being disrespectful and rude in class, and the director thinking he knew the only Columbian girl in the program, called Fanny in and assumed it was her. This rubbed me the wrong way. Don't you think they should have checked and made sure who the student was before calling them in to a serious meeting in his office to be scolded? There are two things in this situation that bother me greatly. Not only did the teacher refer to her student as "the Columbian girl," taking away her name and identity and assigning her identity to her race and ethnicity, but the director didn't question who "that Columbian girl" was in the program and simply assumed it was Fanny. If he had really known her, he would have known she would never be rude intentionally and if there was ever a question of offense, she would quickly apologize for having a miscommunication. It pains me that in an international program here at TCU, the director would succumb to racial identities when referring to his students. Fanny, who has never been in trouble, because she is such a sweetheart, was terrified by this accusation that she had done something wrong and was in danger of not being able to register for the next term of classes. To me, this is inexcusable. I have to admit, I am disappointed with the people involved in this process for letting this happen to Fanny. If it had been me referred to as "that white girl," I would have lost it. Please have the decency to use their name. They deserve that right as a human being.
Anyways, now that I am done with my rant, I can continue with the conversation. We spent a lot of time discussing troubles we have with each other's language. I have been having a lot of issues lately in Spanish with the order of words. For example in English we would say "Maria is here" however in Spanish the order of words appears like so: "Here is Maria." When translating English phrases into Spanish ones, I tend to use the incorrect order of words. She is having issues with her writing in English as well and confused "has" with "had" and "have." We discussed how it would just be so convenient if the whole world just knew the same language. We then laughed at how ridiculous we were sounding with this philosophical and impossible view we expect of the world.
I've found that each time I meet with Fanny, the time goes by faster and conversation is much easier to attain. We don't stall in our words to think of what else to discuss. Instead it flows rather tirelessly. The hour went by so quickly today, I felt like there were so many more things I'd like to talk about with her.
I felt very pleased when I showed her the book we're reading in my "Panorama of Spanish Literature" class here at TCU and she was very impressed that I could read and understand it. She kept saying "You're better at Spanish than you think you are Madi." This made me feel much better. For some reason, I have a huge fear that when I try to speak Spanish to native speakers, they will judge me or think about how horrible my pronunciation is compared to theirs, etc. But hearing this reassuring comment from Fanny helped my confidence in Spanish a lot more. I am thankful for her help in breaking me out of my so to speak "Spanish shell."
I am looking forward to meeting with her again soon, because we are becoming friends now and enjoy spending time together.
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