LISTEN TO HIS ORAL HISTORY
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I experienced first being a Latino and not being bilingual -- not knowing the English language -- that in itself took us a while to learn. Lucky that we were in elementary school so I think that helped us learn it faster instead, you know, for a lot of Latinos who come here as adults. One experience, I remember my kid brother was beating up on this American kid -- on this white kid. And I saw what was happening so I grabbed my kid brother, you know, Tony, and tell him -- what the hell are you doing? Why are you hitting this kid? You know, I was talking to my brother in Spanish. Por Qué tu le esta dando a este muchacho? And he said: Ah! Porque me dijo I´m sorry.
What happened is that the kid hit him with his bike and then he said I´m sorry to my brother and my brother -- he didn´t speak English. He thought the guy, you know, was, besides hitting him with the bike, was insulting him. So when my brother told me that -- I came here a few years before him so I knew what I´m sorry meant. My kid brother didn´t, you know, so I had to hit him over the head and tell him: You know, he´s apologizing to you. And my brother goes Oh! You know, because basically he didn´t know -- so that´s the bilingual -- I had an advantage over him because I was here a couple of years before him so I already knew a little bit of English. I was teaching my family -- my brothers what little bit of English I knew.