Many of my clients are struggling
with what I call the dilemma of bilingualism.
On one level, the dilemma of bilingualism
is all about attitude.
The attitude, for example, that if you go to school,
and you learn two languages in school,
you're considered a genius.
But if you grow up in a household speaking
two languages, you're considered an idiot.
So that's the dilemma of bilingualism, on one level.
On another level, there are all kinds
of challenges and adventures that
arise out of being in a bilingual household
or bilingual community.
One such challenge, for the children in these families,
is a situation where they have to translate for the parents.
And this happens everywhere.
This is a poem about one such adventure.
It's called "Borofels."
For Sonia Nieto.
"In Brooklyn, the mice were crazy with courage--
bony, gray pickpockets snatching crumbs
from plates at the table.
The roaches panicked in spirals on the floor,
or weaved down walls for the sanctuary of cracked paint.
No heat, so the oven door drooped open
like an immigrant surprise.
Sonia's mother was mute in English,
mouth chapped and coughing, without words to yell for heat.
But the neighbors spoke of Borofels.
Tell Borofels, and mice shrivel in traps,
roaches kick in poisoned heaps, steam pipes
bang so loud that windows open in winter.
Sonya and her mother sailed a subway train,
rocking like a ship desperate for light,
then roads in an untranslated territory of Brooklyn.
So Sonia translated.
Where is Borofels?
No one knew.
The girl pinballed by strangers in a hurry,
hooded against frost as puffed quick clouds of denial.
Sonia saw the uniform, then.
Blue coated trooper of the US mail, and pleaded for Borofels.
His face, drowsing in bewilderment,
awoke with a gust of what he suddenly understood,
and he pointed down the street.
You want the Board of Health.
They could yell now, like banned poets back from exile."