I have had many Hispanic friends, and I have yet to meet a person uses Spanish as their primary language that can not roll their "R"s. On the contrary, I believe if we were to raise a chimpanzee and try to teach it English, I do not think we would be successful. No matter how much we nurture the English language into the chimp, I do not think it will be able to speak it. I think the genetics of the chimpanzee will not allow it to annunciate as we human beings do. .
In the autobiography Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriquez tells of his childhood and his family's transition from a Spanish-speaking family to an English-speaking family. After Richard's instructors had a conference with his parents about his usage of English, his parents began speaking English as often as possible. His parents nurtured their children with more and more English. How proud she must be that Richard has become a professional writer.
Although I am very grateful of my upbringing, I can not help but think of how it would be if I were to be raised by a mother and father. My grandmother did a great job of nurturing me, but it was far lacking when compared to my friend's and my cousin's parents. To this day, I feel uncomfortable to give my grandmother a hug or a kiss. I always knew she loved me, but we did not show the affection physically. She nurtured into my brother, sister, and I discipline, responsibility, independence, ambition for education, but affection is something our family did not show. I sometimes wondered how it would be to have an actual mother and father. Would I be happier? Would we be any more of a family than what I have now? Would there be more of a sense of completeness? I no longer ask myself these questions. One of the most important things that my grandmother reared into us is that we should be happy with what we do have and get the most out of it. Our mind is what she was talking about.