Clara

Clara was a junior when this study was being conducted. She was born and grew up in Miami, Florida. Clara’s father was originally from Cuba and her mother was originally from Puerto Rico. She primarily spoke English at home, but she spoke Spanish to the family members who only spoke Spanish. Her boyfriend had Cuban background, and she almost only spoke Spanish with her in-law family. She had visited Spain once during her sophomore 62 summer vacation. As a Spanish-English bilingual speaker, Clara claimed that her English was stronger than her Spanish. 

Clara chose green and orange to represent Spanish and English respectively. She claimed that she tried to make both languages equal in head because she was always thinking in both languages, but it turned out that the orange parts for English took more space. This was aligned with her statement that she was more proficient in English than in Spanish. Clara colored both hands and feet in orange because she navigated the world and conducted herself mostly in English. Just like the orange dotted lines showed, English was everywhere in her life, and it was the “predominant thing” that people noticed about her. 

The orange dotted lines were leading to the heart in red and blue. Red symbolized the Cuban culture from Clara’s father side and blue symbolized the Puerto Rican culture from her mother side. These two colors created the national flags of both countries. The contrast of the colors indicated that she had very different experiences growing up in these two cultures. The heart was mostly in blue because Clara loved her Puerto Rican heritage which constructed her core identity. She also colored eyes in blue and added a blue halo around the head because she thought and saw the world in the way her maternal family brought her up. In contrast, Clara only added a small red line around the blue heart because she felt less associated with her Cuban family. She colored her mouth in red because she had “Cuban temper”, which was a synonym to hot temper. She combined red and blue in the stomach area because she was craving for Hispanic food. 

Clara was most satisfied with the green vine with blue flowers she added to her language portrait. She believed that her Spanish language ability and Puerto Rican heritage were what she was “proudest of” and made her “most beautiful”.