It’s taken me a while to respond to this wonderful title exchanged to me by Zachary Kai because while the answer is a simple, definite yes, the way in which being bilingual has changed me (perhaps define would be more apt) is hard to discern.

I’ll start this way: my soul is in Spanish. Soul in the Cartesian sense because even my belief in such a thing is part of the linguistic and cultural baggage of speaking a Romance language. Does that mean my inner monologue is in Spanish? No, not really. I’m comfortable thinking in English and it feels just as native as Spanish.

It’s more like I’ve compartmentalized skills and behaviors according to language. Academic tasks like writing papers or professional tasks like software development run in English naturally in my understanding. Humor on the other hand feels funnier in Spanish. It’s more intimate that way. But somehow music and lyrics make all the more sense in English, moving me in a way that I have yet to experience otherwise. Although literature feels at home when it’s in Spanish.

In my teenage years I understood bilingualism meant I was also bicultural. This was not easy to understand for all my friends growing up, resulting in my social groups being strictly divided depending on the language each spoke. And this meant I developed what at first glance may seem like two distinct personalities.

Now that I’m older I know there is no such thing as “English” me and “Spanish” me. In fact, I’m at a point where I feel as though I have comfortably grown past the confines of language as a defining trait of my identity. The most meaningful experiences of my life have invariably surpassed language. It’s a coin toss between the languages at my disposal to put into words what I live and feel, but regardless of the language I choose my description will be a facsimile of the real thing. I suppose in that sense I would call myself a Platonist.

In cyberspace I have had a notoriously difficult time coming to terms with how to present myself. I have often wondered whether I should have a designated profile or website where I write in one language or where I only talk about some topic. But that is not an issue of bilingualism, it is instead a severe misunderstanding of the web as a medium for communication. And that of course is a result of the deliberate homogenization of the internet to facilitate advertising.

There’s always a question of defining a brand or image or appealing to some ghost readership. It’s been hard to unlearn this. But the truth is that there is more comfort in authenticity.

That’s how I chose the tagline for this website — a weblog about people and technology. Weblog instead of blog because weblog captures the sort of thing David Karp was referring to when he built Tumblr:

All of the editors’ thoughts, creations, experiences, and discoveries poured down the screen. It was like flipping through the scrapbook of a like-minded person we had never met.

The editors seemed to post with zero obligations. Anything neat they came across went up. Little or no commentary was needed. The only context was the author. How absolutely beautiful.

Those words capture the essence of the kind of web I want. In the first iteration of the tagline I actually put technology before people. Yuck. It’s a process!

So… has the way I exist changed as a result of being bilingual? Yes, insofar as the languages I speak have equipped me with the words to ask how I want to define myself and the cultural capital to make it possible.

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Links:

• Zachary Kai
• David Karp