I live in Southern California and decided to go to the local mall the other day. It was a pleasant day and the mall seemed like a good idea. When I got there I began to walk around the mall and even went into a couple of shops. Something seemed very off though and I couldn't figure it out, at first. Then it hit me. Almost everyone was speaking Spanish.

Here I was in a large mall in America and the majority of the people around me were speaking a foreign language. As I started paying attention, I noticed something else. Unless I spoke Spanish to the people speaking Spanish, they seemed offended. It was like I was some sort of live version of Hannibal Lector asking them for a small taste, perhaps just a finger.

Then it occurred to me that this is one of the main issues I have with our Latino friends. Their culture is different from my culture. How they prioritize things is different from how I would. Normally, this is not an issue with most people I meet that are different. With them I can just discuss our differences and then find an area of commonality and then take it from there. With the Spanish speaking Latinos this is a lot more problematic. Communication means that we both have to understand each other. We both have to have a common point of reference or we will never be able to work out our issues. We need to be able to speak the same language.

At this point, a lot of the Latinos I know would point out the fact that most of them do speak English quite well. I agree. However, if they speak English quite well, then why aren't they speaking English around me? Why exclude me from the conversation? Why speak Spanish so much of the time when the language in our country is English? How am I supposed to find common ground when over half, or more, of what you say I cannot understand? You'll speak to me in English but then like old Uncle Bob that no one likes, you'll turn right around and exclude me by switching to Spanish.

Why not just speak English? You can still have every aspect of your culture that you want to have. Then again, maybe that's the point. You want every aspect of your culture and none of mine. You only want to communicate with me on your terms. So here I am, Caught in the Middle of trying to communicate and not being able to. Caught in the Middle between your culture and mine.