Some of you maybe noticed at one point in time that I would reference our land as "Rancho de la Libertad" and then that that switched to referencing it as "Rancho de la Liberta"
This stems from both our Americanized family members and our family members directly from Mexico having a really funny debate amongst ourselves as to what the correct spelling/grammar would be here.
Well-educated Hispanics are probably scoffing at me/us, but I think it's a really harmless reminder of the complexities of language and the divide that Chicanos straddle between two languages (neither of which was originally theirs, which adds to the complexity of how Spanish is in various parts of the Latino-Hispanic world versus the Spanish-Hispanic world). Finally we consulted some Spanish dictionaries and several online translators and decided that the correct form is "Rancho de la Libertad", so I'll be fixing that everywhere.
I always think of Luis Rodriguez's "Always Running" (probably the book that has the most to do with saving my life) and how in it he says something about how his mother speaks neither well-educated Spanish nor unbroken English, and so no one ever listens to her.
All we can do is keep learning, and try to pass on language to our children (something our assimilated parents couldn't do for us).
