I’ll just call you “Peter.”

We started a new cycle of adult literacy classes at the CTC, so I get to see everything from the first day (this past Tuesday), and have a bigger hand in the classes. Above are three of the women who I am working with, Justina, Carlita, and Maria Jose.  So far, it has been pretty great.  Well, mostly great.  The first class, I locked all my materials in the radio room, and Diomaris, the literacy facilitator, hadn’t received the new workbooks yet. So, about 10 mins before class started, I IM’d Natasha, a literacy volunteer working at an NGO in Santo Domingo, and she quickly emailed me some ideas for class.  They worked amazingly, and saved the class.

We all introduced ourselves, talked about why they were here, and what they hoped to get out of the classes.  Reading the bible was a common goal, as was being able to help their grandchildren.  Then, we showed them how to write their names.  I was struck by how strange and powerful that seemed to me—these women had gone their whole lives without knowing exactly how to write their names, or what their names looked like, and now they were able to write them down.  To represent themselves, to record themselves, to put their names on something.  You have a name—Juana—that is a part of who you are, but it’s always just in the air.  You can say it, but it doesn’t stick like it does when it’s written down.  Then it’s permanent, it’s… I don’t know.  It seems different.  We talked about where their names came from, and who gave them to them. They had history, and stories, and you could tell that they felt proud to share.

So, I sat down next to one of the women, and asked her what her name was.  I wrote it down at the top of the first page of her notebook: Vincenta. I wasn’t sure how to spell her last name—it had either a Y or a LL, which make the same sounds.  I checked the roster, and used the LL. Then, she copied it down to cover the rest of the page.  Vincenta.  Vincenta Vincenta Vincenta…  After she finished, she looked at it, proud. She smiled, and laughed, and retraced the letters with her pencil. The rest of the women were still working, and Vincenta started counting the number of letters in her name. She looked a little confused. 

Diomaris wrote all the womens’ names on the board so they could see them all together, and my stomach sank. Vicenta. NOT Vincenta.  I had taught this woman how to spell her own name incorrectly. I’m an IT volunteer who thought he could do literacy and just fucking taught someone how to spell her name incorrectly. Shit shitshitshit. Diomaris saw my look of horror, and I told her what I did.  Terror flashed in her eyes, and then she buckled with a stifled burst of laughter. Vicenta was recounting the letters in her name. Shit.  Maybe she won’t notice. Maybe she’d like being Vincenta better! Even if she notices, I have a degree in Spanish… Hell, what have I done? I felt like throwing up. I should ET (early termination) right now.

Here goes: I smiled at her, and said “You know something is wrong, don’t you—I made a mistake. I’m sorry, I taught you how to spell the Americanized version of your name instead of the Spanish one.  I’m still learning Spanish, we’re all students here.” And she thought it was really funny, and wanted to know how to pronounce it in English.  She kept laughing about it through the rest of class, because for a few minutes, she was officially an American with an American name. And I officially worked at Ellis Island.