Two Languages, One Home
Rafael moved countries at fifteen and spent years translating for his parents before he'd fully translated the experience for himself.
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About the contributor
Rafael teaches middle school and still keeps a notebook of new words.
Being the family translator at fifteen
I was the one who understood enough English to sit in on my dad's job interviews and my mom's parent-teacher conferences. I didn't have the vocabulary for most of what was happening, but I had more than they did, so it fell to me.
The word that had no good translation
There's a word in our home language for a very specific kind of homesickness — not for a place exactly, but for a version of yourself that only existed there. I still haven't found the English word for it.
Where home ended up being
For a long time I thought I had to pick one country to belong to. It took me until my twenties to realize home could be the space between the two, not a betrayal of either.