You're listening to LifeKit, from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's MaryL.

I was at this event one time when an acquaintance said to me,

you're Puerto Rican, right?

Do you speak Spanish?

And I said something like, I mean, I do,

but I never feel like I'm fluent.

The truth is, I stoia aprendiendo.

I'm learning, poco a poco, little by little.

What was jarring about that interaction though,

the guy who asked me, who wasn't a Spanish speaker, by the way,

responded, I'm disappointed in you.

It's kind of a wild thing to say.

Condescending, judgmental.

But common, right?

When people know that your parents, or in my case,

grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins,

speak another language, they have expectations that you'll speak it too.

Many of my uncles would call me the jadeji,

which means the foreigner in Persian.

When I speak with my mom, it's embarrassing,

because I know she's not judging me,

...