Cuban-born Maria Carreira, the coauthor of two college Spanish textbooks, can glide easily between her native tongue and English. But in her daily life in Southern California, picking which language to speak can be very complicado.
Such as the time when she was at a taco stand where everyone seemed to be ordering and chatting in Spanish. Carreira started placing her order en espanol, but she quickly switched to English after she got a look at the young employee behind the counter.
"He had the bluest eyes," Carreira said.
Carreira, a linguist who teaches at Cal State Long Beach and an expert in the use of Spanish in the United States, acknowledges that she blundered at the taco joint. Though the counterman responded in English, it dawned on her that he had been capably handling orders in Spanish.
Yet her flub reflects a tricky language-etiquette question confronted daily by the nation's growing ranks of English-Spanish bilinguals: When to use ingles and when to speak Spanish?
Not everyone is charmed by the budding bilingualism. Some Americans resent the widespread use of Spanish, particularly at government agencies and public schools. "Our government has gone way too far in encouraging people not to learn English," said Jim Boulet Jr., executive director of Springfield, Va.-based English First, an advocacy group that is working to make English the nation's official language.
Boulet and other critics also complain that Spanish sometimes is used to exclude, or gossip about, people who speak only English.
Still, among the estimated 18 million Americans proficient in both languages, according to the U.S. Census in September, the issue isn't whether to speak English or Spanish, but when. There's the delicate matter of courtesy -- and avoiding bruised feelings. Occasionally, Carreira said, "it's a land mine."
For example, switching to Spanish might seem rude if it suggests the other speaker is inept in English. Yet among Latinos proud of their ethnic heritage, completely avoiding Spanish can come across as standoffish.
Experts such as Carreira say the language decision among bilinguals is often made in a split second, based on cues such as age, clothing and apparent social status -- along with skin, eye and hair color. Location also can be important: Is the venue East Los Angeles or West L.A.?
