Yuliana Quiroz 
Edinburg- “Spanish is becoming less existent in our families,” said Ana Celia Zentella, a professor emerita at the University of California San Diego.
The different uses and transformations of the Spanish language can prompt a never-ending conversation here in the Rio Grande Valley.
And this exact conversation was stimulated by Dr. Ana Celia Zentella, an internationally recognized language activist and anthropological linguist. She was one of several keynote speakers invited by UTRGV as a part of the 6th National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language.
The linguist discussed her life. She shared how she was raised in the South Bronx and came from a Mexican father and a Puerto Rican mother. She says experiencing this variety of Spanish led her to study language.
“So I understood that there were attitudes about language that I wanted to study and that they really had to do with people’s attitudes towards different races, towards different cultures, and to the class backgrounds of people,” said Zentella.
Zentella was able to discuss the pain that some have endured being criticized for their Spanish and why some are so reluctant to speak it.
She gave a political significance to language bringing up President Donald Trump and the several statements he has made to the public on those who are immigrants.
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