Page 30 - Voices-2022-04
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GLEANINGS FROM THE GROVE
You Take That Back!
Paul C. Fanning, DTM
I have always had great empathy for those who
have immigrated to this country. When I was
four or five, we lived in a bedroom community Our neighbors were Hispanics,
of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. It was composed of and the school I attended,
two major immigrant communities, the Italians, Linda Vista, had absorbed
and the Greeks. Our landlord and his family were another school district
Greek. From them I learned much about the rich made up of Spanish-
culture they cherished, the foods, and their love speaking students. There
of the nearby Greek Orthodox Church. I still were many Portuguese
remember the glowing candles of the cathedral, families. It was a true
the ikons, and all that surrounded me when I polyglot experience.
visited that piece of heaven on earth. My second-grade
Some of my friends were Italian-American, class was bilingual.
but I stood out like a sore thumb in their midst I became “Pancho” as
because I had an accent. It was so pronounced there were already two Pablos in class. I also met
that I had to attend a special speech class to my best friend through college that year.
lose my English pronunciation and become But it was a fateful day on the playground that
“Americanized.” It worked—partially. Now I am I will never forget. We had another student
accused of being a Canadian. who was born in Germany who caused it all to
We were to spend time in North Carolina transpire. He had come over to our house one
where anyone not native to the south (and day, and of course heard my grandmother and
Southern England did not count) were “Yankees,” mother talking with their British accents. He
or other words to that effect. A slight turnaround began to make fun of them during recess while
for me becoming a Yankee, but. . . I was with my friends and neighbor—who were
Well, that was life in the 1950’s. After returning Latinos. It got profoundly serious in my mind
to Pittsburg for a bit, we moved cross country as he continued to poke fun and mimic “our”
to the Sunshine State of California. This was the accents. My father’s side of the family’s Irish
land of Spanish street names, towns, and peoples. temper began to creep into my behavior, and I
Safe now, right? WRONG! began to yell at him, “TAKE IT BACK or else.” It
30 ONE COMMUNITY
