Garifuna

For about 18 years I have worked with people of different cultural backgrounds.  I had experience multicultural encounters on so many occasions.  The things a person wears, eat, dance, speak and religion.

 While working I have encountered a young woman who name is Mary. Mary has a baby who is Six months. I have been working and getting to Mary for four months. Mary and her family were from Honduras. She was bought the United stated as a child. Mary attends New York City public school. She learned to speak, read and write in English. Mary future career is Interpreter. She currently is studying French.

Occasionally I would hear Mary speaking with my co- worker and her peers in Spanish and English. One night while working I heard Mary speaking to her child in a language I had never heard. This was a new Language to me so I asked Mary to tell me more to me about the language. Mary told me the language was called Garifuna. She was taught Garifuna as a child by her grandmother and mother.

Garifuna Language descended from African slaves who escaped and settled a long the Caribbean coast of Central America in the seventh century. The Language is slowly being replaced. The Honduran people who migrated to New York City are trying to keep the language and cultures alive by holding events were stories are told in Garifuna. (“Gonzales”)

Mary's family keeps the Garifuna language alive by teaching the language to their children at born and makes Garifuna the main language spoken among their family. Mary told me she doesn’t have many friends in her generation who speak Garifuna. One day she would teach me so she can have someone to outside her family to speak with.

WORK CITED

Gonzalez, David

Garifuna Immigrants in New York.     July 24, 2015

New York Times       lens.blog.nytimes.com      August 25, 2017