“Oh, you’re fluent? Can you help me with my Spanish homework?”

The dreaded question. I hear it almost daily.

“Sure!”

I say with a smile, even though my day just got 10 times worse.

Helping people with their Spanish class has become such a recurring theme in my life that I’ve even learned some Spanish myself. I learned through speaking the language with my family, so when you ask me how to conjugate “hacer” into imperfect subjunctive, I’m honestly at a loss. I guess I should be grateful to the countless people who have asked me to help them because my Spanish skills have improved. Yay, I’d always wondered how to order dinner in Spain!

Although, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t want to help my friends do their homework; I’m for sure down for that! But when the only other words you’ve ever exchanged with me is, “do you have some gum?” I don’t feel particularly inclined to help you out. I mean, do you even know my name? I doubt it. So, please just let me go back to half paying attention to this lesson.

The absolute worst is when people who have made iffy comments about me being “exotic” use me for their homework. I get that you might be curious about my culture, but frankly, I don’t know how your trip to Cancun last summer relates to me being bilingual.

I love the fact that I can speak Spanish. It’s let me communicate with more people and made my life more interesting. Also, it definitely won’t hurt to put on college apps. But please, before you ask me to help you with the back of your worksheet, remember that google translate is just a couple clicks away.