Daciea Davis  

Prof. Alcala 

FIQWS 

Date 

Literacy Narrative  

                                                              Two Faced                                                        

   Growing up in Jamaica I always spoke Patois (Broken English), which I was always corrected for, and was often told to “speak properly”. This was said to me mainly by my mom. My mom would do this because she believed that it would make me sound more intelligent and that it would also prepare me for professional challenges to come. For example, a job interview where I would be required to sound professional. There were times where she would ignore me because I wasn’t speaking properly which forced me to have to change the way I spoke around her. This sometimes makes me feel upset or shut down and not want to say anything because she was being strict over something that I grew up hearing and is a major part of my identity 

       Being around people speaking Patois made it hard for me to adapt to speaking proper English but I still had to try. Patois is important to Jamaica because “enslaved people from West and Central Africa were exposed to, learned, and nativized the vernacular and dialectal language spoken by the slaveholders and overseers”(I used google to get this infromation)This to me means a lot because when people hear the way I talk it can only be one of a few places in the Caribbean, my language isn’t common, and it is spoken amongst a few people which singles me out and I don’t mind it because I love being different. 

In 2021 when I migrated to the United States of America the language was much more different compared to where I grew up, but I was familiar with it because I was always corrected since I was young. I had to understand even though I speak English because its broken not many may people would understand, which forced me to change the way I speak when I go out. My accent is very strong making me unable to pronounce words such as: literally (litarally), ancient (ainshent), and banana (banaana)  like most Americans do. This brings me a lot of attention. This leads to people asking me where I am from or what part of Jamaica, I’m from. Sometimes I feel shy but now I am used to it because I know that they’re just curious and don’t mean any harm in what they’re saying. 

Watching movies such as Kissing Booth, Good Deeds etc. Also being in school around Americans everyday boosts the way I speak English by helping me to be able to learn and speak a little better every day. I consider this to be helpful because we, as humans adapt, and hearing it every day makes me adapt. 

I now attend the City College of New York located in Manhattan New York, where I’m surrounded by even more cultural backgrounds compared to high school, I enjoy coming here because everyone is to themselves but is willing to help if you approach them, there’s people willing to help make a change within you and it is built up of many different opportunities to better me as a student. For example, clubs, internships, meetings with your professor, one and one conferences with teachers and more.   

An advice I would give to others in a similar situation as mine is to keep going. I’m speaking better than I was a year ago because I was persistent, and I listen to people talking and I also  watch movies which helps to boost my English.