In terms of a pure literary experience, the first thing I can remember is copying down letters on large lined pieces of paper that were an uncomfortable grey-ish brown hue. I never liked those papers because not only was their color aesthetically unappealing, but they felt unnecessarily frail to the touch, as if a mere poke could tear a gaping hole through the paper, ruining the work that had previously been so meticulously placed on them. The alphabet, while a necessary asset to the development of a child, can seem like a tedious and repetitive task due to its incessant style of being drilled into your mind. That is, to a four year old that’s only real concern is when and where they will get their next pack of Pokemon trading cards. However, at least these assignments were limited to school time.

If there is a perfect time for there not to be school work, it’s during the summer. Summer is supposed to be a time for friends, fun, family, and sun. Notice the lack of the word books in the previous sentence. The reason for the absence of books in that sentence is that the boring nature of books perfectly contradicts the fun vibes of the break. The main point here is that my first summer reading assignment is something that has stuck with me since I was initially impacted by it. It may not seem like much right now, but I was assigned a Berenstain Bears chapter book going into the first grade. The directions said something along the lines of, “have your parents help you with this book”. Needless to say, I made my mom read the whole thing out loud to me. 

Dumb move on my part. The thing with being the child of two Colombian immigrants is that when you try to learn English from them, they teach you with a fairly heavy Spanish accent which makes it difficult to understand effectively. I used to be ashamed of the accent that seemingly plagued my parents’ efforts to communicate in English. It was something that I was heavily embarrassed of, to the point of begging my parents to keep as quiet as possible around my American friends. This situation has changed, however. Throughout the years I’ve learned to laugh at their little mistakes and attempt to helpfully correct them rather than to act out of disgust towards it. I still believe that the accent is far from ideal, but I think it’s fair to say that it’s something that I’ve gotten used to.

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