Texas 21

Listen to Texas 21, a 20-year-old woman from Brownsville, Texas, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/07/1996

PLACE OF BIRTH: Brownsville, Texas

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Hispanic

OCCUPATION: student and food-service manager

EDUCATION: two years at university

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The speaker lived in Dowagiac, Michigan, for two years.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker’s first language is Spanish, so pronunciation may reflect unfamiliarity with the English language, rather than speech patterns. She and her family were migrant farm workers and grew up in a mostly Mexican household and community.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Jacob Covert (under supervision of Deric McNish)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 04/04/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

My mother: Um, my mother is very strong. She has always taught me like the moral, like to stand by my beliefs and my morals. And, um, I don’t know; she just influenced me in many ways.

[Subject laughs.] Um, my first crush: Shit, that probably was like in kindergarten. [Subject laughs.] Um, he was probably cute ’cause, like, he wouldn’t be ugly. [Subject laughs.] He probably had beautiful eyes. And that’s it. It’s, it’s all about the face. So, yeah. Um, when my sisters practically can’t find a shirt, they blame me that I borrowed it. When I — their clothes don’t even fit me. I don’t know if that makes sense. But I don’t. My sisters always fighting for clothes anyways, so they probably just find anyone to blame.

Um, growing up around a whole bunch of Mexicans, um, has taught me like the difference of, like, normal. Ah, I don’t know; it’s just different ’cause, like, I feel like Mexicans, like we’re, we don’t have a lot of money. So we don’t — it’s, it’s very different, like especially coming to MSU [Michigan State University]. And you see everyone’s like — not being racist or anything — but they are white. Like, you see how much more money they have than what you have. And it’s like you see how they blow money, and, like, um, a lot of Mexicans like me and my family, we’ve, uh, we’ve like worked in, um, migrant fields and everything. So you can, like — we take more value in money than usually other people do. Um, and that’s just, like, impacted me in, like — um, I don’t; I just care a lot. I just care more. And we’re, um, very hard working. I feel like, um, you’ll never see a Mexican beg for money. You’ll rather see them, like, do any other job which would be sell oranges or whatever. I mean anything. We just hustle.

OK, OK, my family is like more than 50 grandchildren. [Interview: Wow.] So all the family comes over. There’s tamales. There’s posole. There’s menudo. There’s, um, so many Mexican dishes. It’s like, uh, uh, like there’s bunuelos, there’s champurrado. There’s just, um. And usually we play lotería, which is bingo. Uh, and like, so like everyone comes over and, like, you have like a whole feast, like a whole buffet of a food. And then we all like just, uh, we pray to, like, before we eat and then we just, uh, munch, munch on the food. We eat; then we play loteria; then; uh, we don’t open the presents until 12, but before that everyone’s like, um, either [clears throat] singing karaoke where everyone’s already drunk and they’re dancing cumbias or just dancing, um, huapangos, or all that Mexican music. And, uh, the little kids are playing around. And when 12 comes, we all wait by the tree, open trees, open the, open the presents. [Subject laughs.] And, yeah, it’s just quality time, but it’s really, really fun.

I mean, I guess my, I would say like, um, picking crops; I would say it was the worst because I got really really sore. Like, I went one day to pick cucumbers for like five hours to fill up this huge box
for 20 bucks. Like, it was so not worth it. But, um, I guess that’s, that’s where I learned from such a young age to, like, value my money. And, like, from there, if I feel like I do not want to do this
I go, yeah. But other than that, it can be my worst experience. But it also helped me grow as an individual.

[Subject speaks Spanish]: Los Tres Cerditos: Érase una vez que había una mamá cerda que tenía tres cerditos. Ella los amaba mucho, pero no había suficiente comida para alimentarlos, así que los cerditos tuvieron que ir a buscar su suerte.

[English translation: The Three Little Pigs: Once upon a time there was a mama pig who had three little pigs. She loved them very much, but there was not enough food to feed them, so the little pigs had to go seek their fortune.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacob Covert and Deric McNish; Spanish transcription and translation by speaker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/05/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

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