Blog Post #2: Code Switching and Bilingualism

Code Switching and Bilingualism

Over the weekend I was at Tarleton State University, Stephenville for a conference organized by College Teachers of English. My first presentation at this conference was a very pleasant experience. Perhaps because of the size of the conference or because most of the presenters were from universities and colleges in Texas there was a nice homey feel to it. It was also interesting to learn what people were teaching and researching at their home institutions. Check out the CCTE website for description of the conference:
http://www.drw.utexas.edu/CCTE/conference-stephenville-2011/

My presentation was a joint one with Dr. Rich Rice titled "From Texas to the World: Geographical and Cultural Navigations through Life-Writing." Rather than talk about my presentation, I'm going to focus on another joint presentation in the same session which we got to hear titled: “The Melding of Two Cultures and Two Languages Through Code-Switching Through Creative Literary Exchange” by Sandra E. Garrett, Texas A&M International University, and Sergio D. Garza, Texas A&M International University. 

Both presenters were enthusiastic about the work they do with "code-switching" which is a term used for switching between two languages or between two versions of the same language. Many of their students at Texas A&M at the Loredo campus are bilingual. Some of their students are also first generation diasporic people who use both Spanish and English in their daily communication. Of course many students use Spanish at home and English at formal institutions of learning such as school or university. Sergio and Sandra had brought with them examples of creative writing by children in school and students who are now in college. In their short stories and poems many of these students talk about their experiences of living between two cultures.

One of the poems read out by the presenters titled "Tamarindo" was by a middle school student who compares belonging to a mixed culture to the experience of eating a tamarind candy: sweet, sour, and tangy. The poem refers to a particular candy named Tamy-pop available at most Mexican grocery stores:

http://sweetlittlemexico.com/catalog/images/tamy-pop.jpg

Very helpfully, the presenters had got along a big bag of the candy and offered samples to the audience. 
Besides being a very enthusiastic and enjoyable presentation, it got me thinking of how this kind of work relates to the South Asian diaspora. I also found a new metaphor for describing a bicultural experience: a little bit like eating a sweet-sour candy.