MFL hosts guest speaker: Potowski

By: Natolie Pistole
Contributing Writer

There are many different languages and with those languages, many different dialects. On Thursday, Sept. 20, in the Morgan Room of Poling Hall, Kim Potowski, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, enlightened a diverse audience of Monmouth College students, faculty and even some of Monmouth’s community members about her study of one specific Spanish dialect.

Potowski was introduced to Monmouth College by Leisa A. Kauffmann, assistant professor of Spanish. Kauffmann claimed, “I invited Dr. Potowski to come because I was familiar with her and her research from graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.” As soon as Kauffmann found out a little more about Potowski, Kauffman knew she wanted Potowski to come speak at Monmouth College so that the campus could hear her message.

“As the Latino population grows in the United States, so do the number of people who speak Spanish at home. Inviting Dr. Potowski is a way of learning about and recognizing the importance and influence of Latino cultures in our midst,” said Kauffmann.

 The audience on Thursday night did learn the importance of the Latino culture as Potowski, with her spunky and energetic lecture style, took the audience through a very interesting and factual presentation. She began her presentation by explaining that there are huge populations of Latinos in many of today’s U.S. cities. Many of these people can be defined as straight Mexican (both parents of Mexican descent) or straight Guatemalan (both parents of Guatemalan descent), for example.  But what about those individuals from mixed-Latino marriages?  This is the area which interested Potowski, and, from that interest, she developed a study that focused on the linguistic patterns of young “MexiRican” adults.  MexiRican individuals have one Mexican parent and one Puerto Rican parent. 

Potowski shared the story of how she became very interested in a study of which dialect the children of MexiRican descent followed more closely--whether they spoke the Mexican dialect or the Puerto Rican dialect. She hired four experts in linguistics and four other individuals to help her interview young MexiRicans, and what she found is very interesting.

Potowski discovered that twenty out of twenty-seven of her interviewed adults mirrored the language patterns of their mothers. She discovered that her subjects either talked to their mother in Spanish more often, talked to their mother more in general, or were around their mother’s family more often. 

Now that she has found this trend in the Spanish linguistics of Mexican and Puerto Rican children, she would like to follow-up by interviewing the parents of each of her subjects. 

As Potowski passionately talked about her study and interest in the linguistic patterns of MexiRicans, her audience remained captivated by what she offered. Sophomore and Spanish education major, Amanda Wenzel, stated, “I really liked how animated she made her presentation. It was really easy to stay focused and it kept my attention, and I especially enjoyed how she kept the audience involved.”

While she kept the students attentive and on their toes, she also intrigued many of the older members of the audience. During the question and answer portion of the presentation, many of the community members shared stories of past experiences that related to Potowski’s study and also asked many great questions to add to the shared knowledge of the audience.

Monmouth College assistant professor of education, Monie Hayes, stated, “I thought it was very detailed and interesting, and I would like to read more about the language of MexiRicans.”