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Montserrat Andrée Carty | Longreads | April 23, 2024 | 3,251 words (12 minutes)
When I introduce myself to a friend of a friend, I say, “I’m Montse [Mohnt-seh].” At the sight of his bewildered face, I try to help. “Or you can call me Mon-sea.” I’m accustomed to giving people in the United States options, to ensure they are comfortable.
“Wait, why do you have two names?” he asks.
Two names, two identities—this is what I’ve always known.
Though behind this name, there are more than two cultures. I grew up in a cultural stew with a Spanish-French mother, a Colombian-born American father, and an Argentine stepmother. Whether at my mother or father’s home, I was immersed in a blend of languages, accents, and traditions.
My parents briefly considered naming me Violette, a French name to match my mother’s first language, but instead I was named after a mountain—Montserrat—just outside Barcelona, Spain, where I spent my early childhood. After my French great-grandmother Andrée prematurely gave birth to my grandmother and her twin sister at six months, she went to the serrated mountains to pray to the Virgin of Montserrat, the patron saint of Catalonia, as her babies fought for their lives. The choir boys might have been singing. She must have lit a vela among hundreds of candles already lit, a peseta for a prayer. When her daughters recovered, she gave them twin middle names: Montserrat, after the Virgin who she believed had saved them.
Seven years later, during the Spanish Civil War, my great-grandmother, my grandmother Odette, and her twin sister Yvette fled to France. There, they would be separated. Odette, staying with the French side of the family, only spoke French, Spanish slowly slipping to become her secondary language. Yvette, living with the Spanish side of the family, spoke primarily Spanish. My late grandmother’s Spanish was forever French-accented. Her sister, now 95, still speaks her Spanish with a French accent. What does it feel like to speak your primary language in an accent from your secondary one? I would later find out.
At 5, I spoke all these languages fluently. Today, I only speak two of them, but understand all of them in some way, as they still live inside me.
Like my grandmother, I too was 7 when I left Spain for another country. As I settled into a new life in the US, I learned to change the pronunciation of my name to make it easier on my teachers and peers and to avoid embarrassing mispronunciations. Mon-sea. Telling my friends back in Spain about this, they think it’s cute: que mono! When I moved from Barcelona to Brattleboro, Vermont, with my parents, I started first grade with a thick Spanish accent. How adorable, people remarked to my father about my foreign accent. To assimilate, I worked to lose it as quickly as possible. Eventually, I’d swap accents like clothes—growing out of one and into another. Today, I speak Spanish with a slight slip of an American accent. It makes me feel like an outsider in my own family.
In Vermont, and later Boston, we celebrated all the Spanish holidays—holidays that held more familiarity to me than the American ones. On New Year’s Eve we stuffed peeled green grapes in our mouths to the crackling countdown on Radio Nacional de España in the background. Every January 6th we gathered around the table to cut the Roscón de Reyes, a brioche cake served on King’s Day in Spain, each hoping to find the fève hidden in our piece. We celebrated with golden crowns made from cardboard, flute glasses, and Cava nearby. We received gifts on our saint’s days, more so than on birthdays. At home, I was Spanish. At school, American. When mom got angry at us, the ultimate insult would be spewed: “Ay! That is so American!” But outside of the house, while in the presence of my peers, I wanted that to be true. Being so American would mean I would be allowed to wear shorts to school. I would not be asked “where are you from” regularly. I would blend in.
I am boarding the second leg of my flight from the US to Spain. With a hazy head from lack of sleep, I hear the flight attendant greet me as I step onto the plane. “Hola!” she says in a sing-songy voice, and I find myself slipping into the reality of my “other” self: more animated than I was a day ago, turning the excitement up a notch as if I were reuniting with a cherished friend I hadn’t seen in years. It is when I get to speak jugo de naranja por favor out loud, instead of just water please, which I said six hours ago. And also when the flight crew announces the safety instructions first in Spanish and then in English. In this space, I feel these two parts of me merging for a brief few hours. As I arrive at El Prat, Barcelona’s international airport with floor-to-wall windows that shimmer in the sun, I’ll hear my name and turn around for a moment, forgetting there are many Montses here. I’ll breathe in the language of my childhood being spoken all around me and exhale a sense of belonging.
Before I make my way to the welcome embrace of family, there is a long line through customs. It’s a familiar routine. I hand over my blue passport and the agent looks at my name and then at me: “Pero porque tienes un nombre Catalan?” he will ask, somewhat perplexed. I mention that I am half Spanish: “Soy media Española.” This is the short answer.
To speak my name out loud feels vastly different depending on where I’m standing. In the US, my insides splinter right before I open my mouth. Will the person laugh? Grossly mispronounce it? Misspell it? Insist that my name is not Spanish, it’s French? Or ask the most Frequently Asked Question of all: “But what is your first name?”
When I was a girl, my grandmother called me Aht because as I was learning to speak, even I couldn’t say the first part of my name. Now, when I introduce myself to someone, I notice how often I soften the edges of that last syllable, how I say my name as if it were a question. As if to say: Are you uncomfortable? Let me help.
At a café in Portland, Oregon, I wait to pick up my order. “Monster . . .” Pause. “RAT. ” I see him, the café owner among the chefs, but he doesn’t see me. He has mined and rearranged the letters in my name to find the ugliest words in English. When he hands me my bag and mispronounces my name again (not quite as exaggerated when he was doing it for an audience), I curtly correct him.
“Montse-rraht,” I say, with an emphasis on the rolling Rs.
“Oh, that’s beautiful.” His tune has changed, but I give him no grace—only a faint “thanks” tossed into the air. He has brought out a monster in me, I think.
Her first name is markedly American, whereas mine, Spanish. She grew up (mostly) in Spain, I grew up (mostly) in the US. We were a coin toss: hers fell one way, mine the other.
In my New England middle school, I fantasized about changing my name to Monica. Just three tiny letters changed and I would never again see the teacher’s finger linger on the class roster—that long pause after “Sarah” and before “Alex” would not be a familiar one. Besides, I have a childhood friend in Barcelona named Monica. Yes, Monica. A name that will make me belong in both places, I believed.
When I meet young children in the US with parents like mine, who gifted them names to match their origins, I wonder if they too recoil when hearing the class roll call. If, as adults, they will also feel misunderstood by their adopted country. “I love your name,” I make sure to tell them. I want them to feel special instead of unusual. To not take decades to (re)claim the beautiful complexity of their multiple identities. To believe their father when he says, like mine did, “Trust me, you’ll appreciate your name one day.”
In a Lyft in Los Angeles, my driver, originally from Mexico, tells me his daughter, too, is named Montserrat. I light up. “Really?!”
“Yes, but she hates her name and makes us call her by her middle name,” he says as I watch the cross sway from the rearview mirror. Please tell her, I say, that you met someone today named Montserrat, who also didn’t like her name when she was a girl—but who now says it proudly.
In the US, when someone cares, when they actually want to know how to spell it, or where it comes from, or how to pronounce it, I will ease into the spelling, not exaggerate the rolling of my Rs. I will pinch my fingers together and conduct the letters of my name as if it were a score, or point them as if I were dipping a thin brush in vibrant color, painting on a canvas. I will take my time, because I no longer want to share a watered-down version of the name that runs through my lineage.
I walk into a café in Barrio Gótico and before I say a word, the hostess says, “Hello, what would you like?” in English decorated in a Spanish accent. She is used to seeing more tourists than locals through these doors. I wish to tell her: I know your language—it was once mine. I knew these streets before I knew any others. To convey something of this, I say instead, “Buenas! Un cortado por favor,” letting her know she doesn’t have to speak a foreign language with me.
Her shoulders loosen and a smile curls on her face. “Ah, claro!”
How did she know I don’t really belong here anymore? Is it my clothes or haircut? The way I walk? What tells her I am no longer a Spaniard? If my sister Claudia, who has stronger Spanish features, walked in, would the hostess have greeted her differently? If I never moved from Spain as a girl, would I still be perceived as American?
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There is a bakery in Deià, Mallorca, where I have been going since I was a little girl. Where the panadera will wrap my ensaïmadas in thin paper, passing them to me with hands dusted in powdered sugar. On a recent visit, I met a new panadera. I surmise we are around the same age. Every morning we exchange que tal estas and wish each other a good day after I put my euro on the counter. One of these mornings, I hear her speak in flawless English to a British customer. So, I hand over my own: “You speak perfect English!” She is American, she tells me. Her mother is Spanish, from Soller, it turns out, and her father is from California. Her first name is markedly American, whereas mine, Spanish. She grew up (mostly) in Spain, I grew up (mostly) in the US. We were a coin toss: hers fell one way, mine the other. What would my life have been if I hadn’t left Spain as a child? What would hers have been if she hadn’t left the US? Aside from not experiencing embarrassing roll calls at school, how else might our lives have unfolded? I want to ask her so many questions, but there is a long line wrapped around the store. It is tourist season.
Sometimes there is a fluidity between my languages that I cannot control. No matter where I am in the world, if I’m sleepy, I might catch myself saying, “Ouf, I’m cansadisima.” When I step on something slimy with bare feet, I’ll likely utter “ahh, que aaasco!” rather than “gross!” But also, in Spain—when we are long past sobremesa and the plates and wine glasses have been cleared—English will undoubtedly creep into a sentence in Spanish, too. Yes instead of si. Of course instead of claro.
What would it be to accept this blending of language as part of me, instead of fighting against it? Maybe I jumble these words because that’s what the brain does. Sort of like calling one child by another’s name by mistake. But I wonder: what if these words slip out unconsciously because they feel more authentic to me in Spanish than how they feel in English, or vice versa?
I learn from my father that our first language is stored in a different part of the brain. His first and only language until age 7 was Spanish. Born in Bogotá, Colombia, he lived in a casa in the barrio Chapinero with pet ocelots, deer, and his parents, both journalists. They were bilingual, but inside and outside the walls of his home, Spanish was all he heard.
In my mother’s upbringing, however, three languages were in rotation. To her mother she spoke Spanish, to her father French, and to her sister English. At the dinner table, when they were all together, they spoke French.
“What was your first language?” For many people, this is a question with a simple answer. But in my case, it’s not so clear. Unlike my father’s parents, mine did not worry about blending languages around me. I heard a trifecta of English, Spanish, and French at home, and Catalan at school. It was: Hi kiddo! Hola guapa. Look at the minou. Besos. Bisous. Kisses. Felicidades! Je t’aime chouchou. See you later. Adéu!
I have since lost most of my French and Catalan, and now as an adult, I make minor mistakes when speaking in Spanish. I often must search my mind, as if consulting a map for a neighborhood I used to live in, for the correct Spanish verb, or might be corrected when I say que tengas un buen noche by mistake instead of una buena noche. Once, after a cold, I lost my voice completely for six full days. Not even a whisper made its way out. I used exaggerated facial expressions and hand motions, gesturing toward salt shakers and doors to speak the language I felt but couldn’t voice. This is how it feels to sit around a family table where people are speaking French or Catalan. Like I’m holding a key that fits into a lock, but struggles to turn.
When my father’s parents left Colombia, they landed on the bustling streets of New York City, swapping el Chapinero for the Upper West Side. Not speaking a word of English, my father became mute for half a year. Among his most vivid memories is Antonio, a friend who was Italian and the only kid with whom he could communicate in school. They cobbled together a language between Italian and Spanish that became their own. When Antonio couldn’t go to my dad’s birthday party, my dad no longer wanted to celebrate. He preferred being alone instead of experiencing the discomfort of not having the words to communicate.
Today, my dad speaks perfect English and Spanish, along with Portuguese, but the way these languages live in him is not the same. He has always sensed that he expresses and carries himself differently depending on which language he speaks. Some years ago, when he was featured in a video for a nonprofit that promotes cross-cultural communication, that distinction became clear. They produced the video in both English and Spanish, and he tells me that when they filmed the English version, the producer told him to relax—to be less cerebral and to let things flow. There were a lot of retakes. But later, under the same pressure and bright lights, when it was time to do the Spanish version, the two people directing him were amazed at how much more natural and at ease he was. “The producer said I seemed like a different person,” he tells me. “Well, I guess I was.”
What does it feel like to speak your primary language in an accent from your secondary one? I would later find out.
We seek to become the truest version of ourselves, but what if there isn’t one true version, but multiple? Like father, like daughter, there are two versions of me. One stays up late and indulges in wine, daily meriendas, and cheese smothered across pan. She laughs loud and often and a vibrant energy accompanies her words. She is spontaneous and playful. But the other version is there, too. She covers her mouth when she laughs. She avoids large group gatherings, sticks to routines, and eats dinner at 6 p.m. She overthinks and worries over her words—and whether she misspeaks or is misunderstood.
I recently spent extended time in Spain and France. One day, I just noticed the duality. Noticed that I let my laughter echo, that I was more expressive with hand gestures when speaking, that I happily indulged in all the things I don’t often allow myself in the US. I was less anxious, and I sunk into a gentler part of myself. Does this happen because I’m assimilating to the part of my culture that lives an ocean’s length away? In the US, do I worry about laughing loudly lest I disturb someone? Why do I change my name to make others comfortable? Maybe I’m rejecting the culture that often rejects me, and the result is that I become a smaller version of myself.
I’m sitting at a traditional Spanish restaurant with my family in Sitges, a beach town just outside Barcelona. We begin with olivas and some pan con tomate––ripe tomatoes and olive oil drizzled atop thick crusted bread. I gaze to my left, my eyes settling on the pebble-lined shores of the Mediterranean. I begin to daydream, a favorite pastime, even when I’m in this place of my dreams. At the table, I hear the rapid sounds of the language I’d left behind, and my family momentarily forgets I am here, slipping from Castellano (Spanish) into Catalan. “Ay perdona, Montse!” In moments like these, I feel no kinship with that young girl who wanted to feel so American. What I don’t say aloud is how much I love hearing Catalan echo around me. That I understand nearly every word, even though I can no longer speak it. As I steep back into my blended world—not quite here, not quite there—I sit and revel in the ability to eavesdrop on all the conversations around me in Catalan, French, English, and Spanish. At 5, I spoke all these languages fluently. Today, I only speak two of them, but understand all of them in some way, as they still live inside me.
I am in Los Angeles, at the Spanish consulate. I am here to get my Spanish citizenship. I slide my papers over to the kind woman behind the glass that divides us. Montse, I hear, muffled, but she is not speaking to me. She turns to say something to the older woman next to her. A woman, I realize, who shares my name. She looks over my papers carefully, nodding her head as she goes along. Turns them over once, twice. Todo perfecto, she tells me through the tiny microphone on the other end of the glass. Now, she says, they will make me a Spanish birth certificate. As if I am being born again.
One balmy spring day, I am standing among the Montaña de Montserrat, where my great-grandmother stood all those years ago seeking a miracle. A miracle that delivered, and so the mountain became my namesake. There are few other places I feel more at peace than when I am held by these blushed mountains. El aire, las vistas, las sensaciones. The faint sound of Catalan and the choir boys singing in the distance. I look out at the wide expanse, enveloped by these mountains, and they feel like my mountains. They are part of me. I feel, at least for a moment, home.
Montserrat Andrée Carty is a writer, photographer, and the interviews editor for Hunger Mountain. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is working on her first book. Find her online at www.montseandree.com.
Editor: Cheri Lucas Rowlands
Copyeditor: Krista Stevens
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