Language Growing-Up

Coming up in the neighborhood I lived in it was different learning proper English in a neighborhood where nobody really spoke it. When I was younger my mom would always correct me on the type of words I used like "aint" and "mines", but I didn't understand why she would always corrects me because all the others kids I played outside with would use it and there mothers never corrected them. At times I used to think she was doing it to be mean. When I was in fourth and fifth grade I played basketball for a youth league team and everybody called me "White Boy" because the way I talk. It didn't hurt my feelings or anything, but after a while people tried to label me based on the way I talked and considered me to be soft. I didn't have many friends and I ended up quitting because too many fights with other teammates. Then I transferred to a another Elementary that was mostly Spanish speaking. I never learned to speak Spanish, but it was totatly different speaking proper because I never had any problems with it. I learned my first Spanish song La Bamba and I heard others sing songs I had heard in English, but because of the melody I knew what song they were singing. It was a different environment for me and not only was I surrounded by a language but culture as well.