When I first sat down to write this essay I struggled to figure out what to write. I wasn’t sure if I had any stories about my experiences with English that could really be interesting. I didn’t speak any other language, and I was born and raised here in New York City. I thought that there wasn’t anything that could have made my experiences unique until I started to think deeply about how I communicate with others. Specifically, I remembered a time that one of my uncles pointed out how I sounded like a “yankee”. Looking back on this interaction made me start to think about how the way I spoke was very different from how my family spoke. They all spoke Trinidadian English while I spoke American English; I realized that most of my mother’s side of the family speaks the former, including many of my cousins here in the US. 
While going through some of my old books from when I lived in The Bronx, I found my old copy of Tanti at De Oval, and I remembered how reading it was my first time actually seeing the way my family talked on paper. Up until fairly recently, my understanding of writing was only limited to Standard English because that was all I had ever read. I never got the chance to see Trinidadian English in the same format because all we ever focused on were books from the US and Europe. So I thought that it could be interesting for me to talk about how reading these poems and learning more about the language was important to me.
When it was time for me to start the essay, I figured out that I wanted to try and incorporate both of these thoughts into one document. I wanted to start off by establishing that there was a difference between how I talk and how my family speaks, as well as how I was praised for talking without an accent. I wanted to show readers that, in my personal experience, the focus on Standard English as the “ideal” form of English resulted in me experiencing a kind of disconnect from my family’s culture. I figured that it was a subject that other people could relate to at least a little. Writing this essay ultimately encouraged me to think deeper about how society and the education system has impacted my own life, especially in regards to how I communicate and connect with my loved ones in the US and abroad.

The Bookstore

From the time I was in early Middle school, maybe even sooner, I’ve been reminded that I sound different. It wasn’t a constant reminder, it wasn’t something that was pointed out too often. But it was pointed out enough for it to linger in my mind, for it to stay at the back of my head whenever I talked with someone. Every now and then, somebody would bring up how I sounded “smart” and I’d say “thank you” (how else was I supposed to respond?). But then I’d be confused for a while, because how does somebody sound “smart”?
It was 2019, in the middle of the rainy season. I think I was around 14, maybe 15 at the time. I walked through the empty aisles of a bookstore sat in the corner of a mall in Chaguanas, a few Trinidadian dollars in my pocket, a gift from my grandmother that I could use however I wanted for the 3 weeks or so I’d be spending there. My mother and little sister had gone to buy clothes, and my two cousins were wandering around the mall, leaving only me to walk to the bookstore. It was coming up on two weeks since I had gotten off the plane but I held on to all of it just for this trip, just to go to this borderline empty shop for some books.
I had already taken a copy of Great Expectations, and a copy of Huck Finn. They were a bit less than a hundred dollars or so each, and I had another hundred left, just enough for one last thing. And as I walked along the tables of assorted books I saw a copy of a poetry book with a cover that looked like it was made of construction paper. The paper was cut in the shapes of random people, of cricket players, a field, an umbrella and the like.
I forked over what was left of my money and walked out of the shop, eventually finding the rest of my family wandering around the mall as it slowly emptied out. The sky had become grey with clouds, and a few people were beginning to leave ahead of an approaching storm. My cousins, on the other hand, decided to stay for just a little while longer. And since they were the ones who drove us here, I had no choice but to stay with them. So I walked further down the rows of novelty shops for tourists, until I eventually ended up in the mall’s food court. My family was still shopping for god knows what, and I was starting to get bored. Eventually, I looked down at the small bag of books, down at the poetry book I had bought to take home. I guessed it was a good enough time to start reading.
I opened the book and started reading the first poem and the first thing I felt was confusion. It was clear and unclear, almost exactly things I’ve heard before but still completely foreign, like somebody had switched the letters around just enough to throw me off. But I kept reading it because, above all else, it sounded familiar, almost warm. Not one of the poems was written in Standard English, the way everything else I had read up until then was written. Instead it was all written in the same English my mother used with her family and when there were other Trinidadians around. The same English my cousins used with their parents in Queens, the same English my grandmother and my great uncles and my aunts used when they left for Brooklyn and the Bronx. It was English, our English, the way it sounded to us. Completely known, but completely unknowable.
Some time passed- I don’t remember how much- and eventually one of my cousins started calling me. The rain had picked up, and I heard thunder every couple of minutes or so, so it was time for us to go back to the car. I closed the book, ran through the rain back to the car, and we were gone.
I haven’t been back to the bookstore since that summer. I haven’t been back to Chaguanas, or to my family’s town. I haven’t seen any of it besides the occasional picture, the occasional reminder that it’s all still there. I only have my family and their voices left. I have whatever conversations I can still remember, whatever experiences I can still think about. And above all I have a small, tattered book of poems.