NO SOY PEQUEÑO
Always an angel, never a god
I don't know why I am the way I am
There's something in the static, I think I've been having revelations
- Not Strong Enough, by Boy Genius
For several years (too long in the rearview mirror of life) I worked for a woman who prided herself on saying whatever she was thinking without apology. We were working at our desks in our small office one day when she made a pointed observation.
“You roll your r’s sometimes. Thrrrree!!” she chirped with a laugh like a short bark. “I’m going to call you Little Hispanic Girl.”
“I am Hispanic,” I replied, uncomfortable with the expression of self-satisfied amusement she wore.
“I know. You can tell when you say an R word,” she smirked.
I swallowed down this odd monicker with a thin smile. Back then, the only Spanish I spoke was a basketful of free-floating words which could barely be cobbled together into rough sentences. Sometimes I felt embarrassed by this. I wished to be fluent like my father but hadn’t worked on it. My boss’s nickname tingled like a put-down disguised as an endearment. She was dissecting the way I spoke and linking it to my cultural identity in a way which was meant to be cute, if calling an adult “little” can ever be cute and not demeaning. I disliked her epithet, yet at the time I couldn’t really articulate why.
If I’d expressed my true feelings, I’d guess my boss would have either scoffed dismissively or been stupefied to hear I felt offended. Oh, come on now. It’s only playful teasing. What’s so bad about it anyway?
A few years later, I moved to Costa Rica and learned Spanish. I attended class each weekday, lived with a Costa Rican (“Tican”) family, and determinedly stumbled my way through solo adventures in the city. I became increasingly conversational during the following five years in Ecuador, finally claiming my father’s language as my own.
I’d forgotten all about being “little Hispanic girl” until opening a box of journals in the garage and reading an entry from seventeen years ago. An immediate surge of discomfort enveloped me. I was angry with my former boss for calling me diminutive, yet as the memory ruminated in the back of my mind, I became angry with myself. The truth was, I let myself be small. I used to think, “I’m just an assistant. Not a leader. I stay behind the scenes and help others succeed.”
I believed this, even as my own silence growled inside me, then roared. These days, I listen to that roar. I was cooking dinner when a title crossed my mind: “I’m a little housewife.” Instantly I self-corrected. “No, I’m a housewife but I’m not little. Look at all I do to care for my family and run a home. It’s a long list. There’s nothing little about it.”
If I could go back in time, I would have looked my boss in the eye and told her, “I’m not comfortable with you calling me “little Hispanic girl”. It sounds like a joke. Hispanic is part of my heritage and identity. I don’t need a “little” nickname.”
These days, I speak scattered Spanish phrases to my toddler, wanting my fair-haired, blue-eyed boy to grow up with both languages. I have a bevy of nicknames for him. One even includes the word “little”: “mi amor pequeño” (my little love).
Someday, I want to tell my son this story. I want to tell him to never let anyone call you little when you are not. He is small right now yet growing, learning and doing new things all the time. I tell him he is little and big both at once, a trait which makes me marvel.
Sometimes, in a low tone of melted chocolate, my husband calls me señora. I like this nickname. It gives me confidence. I am señora tall and strong, a speaker of two languages. Once, I let myself be little by not standing up for myself. Now I know the truth of who I am. I am little no more.
