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Emelie Rodriguez

Professor Bryant

Expository Writing

August 28, 2020

Project writing

Picture it! There I was, on the stage, receiving my award! The auditorium is full of

teachers, parents, high schoolers, and middle schoolers alike. We are all in our best suits, good

shoes, heads held up high. The lights are shining on my face, but it is nowhere near as bright as

my smile. I remember my friend shaking my hand and giving me my first ever medal. “What

medal?” You ask. My 4th place medal in Public Speaking for Future Business Leaders of

America. This was the first time I have ever won an award, in Public Speaking no less! This was

probably the biggest accomplishment I have ever done in my, at the time, 16 years of life. Now it

may be hard to understand why that is, so let me start from the beginning.

Growing up in the United States of America as a Hispanic is definitely a unique

experience. Not only do you grow up eating different foods, listening to different music, playing

different games, etc. There is also the need to learn two completely different languages. Along

with this, I ended up developing an atrocious speech impediment. So not only did I have to learn

two languages I had to do it in a very broken manner. Imagine a small 5-year-old girl who could

only say “Chaleta.” That’s Spanish baby language for a flip flop. My poor parents never realized

how bad it was until my kindergarten teacher had told them about it and recommended me to a

speech therapist. Now I do not have any memories about these moments, I just remember one

day waking up and finally being able to flip flops in Spanish correctly. Once through therapy, my

speech had grown tremendously! My father always joked around with me about that. He would
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tell me how much money he spent and how many times he spent praying for me to be able to talk

like all the other kids. And once I could, he started to regret how much I would actually talk. And

on account of everyone who knows me, I talk a lot. But along with this newfound skill, I could

never figure out the best thing to say or how to say it.

English and Spanish truly are opposites. For example, in Spanish, we tend to put the noun

at the beginning of a sentence, followed by the verb; while in English, we put the verb first. So

instead of “Red car.” in Spanish, we would say: “Caro rojo. (Car red).” Since I had to learn two

different sets of language rules, this made it difficult to communicate well with others. Along

with this I have always been scattered brained and a fast talker. This made it even harder for me

to communicate with others because of how much I would talk. It happened so much, I can not

remember all the times my mother had scolded me for talking too fast or saying something that I

should not have said in a situation. I remember one of the worse moments I had was when I was

around 13 years old. An older family friend had come over to visit and immediately came over to

give me a hug. In a moment of desperation to get out of the hug, I said: “Ew. Your breath

stinks.” I could immediately feel the stare of disappointment form in my mother’s emerald eyes.

I immediately got the scolding of a lifetime. Time and time again I scolded for the way I spoke.

Constantly being told that I talked too much, or that I talked too fast, or that I never knew the

right thing to say. I never thought I would be able to fix it until I got into high school.

When I started in my freshman year I decided I wanted to go ahead and join several

clubs. Freshman year went on pretty uneventful until I learned about my old high school’s Law

Club. Law Club is also a part of a competition based club call Mock Trial. Mock Trial is a club

based on taking cases and creating a prosecution and defense side. Then at competition one

school argues on the defense side and another will work on the prosecution side. These clubs
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changed my life. I remember it took my teacher a whole year convincing me to join, which I

finally did in my sophomore year. I remember walking in and immediately receiving a hefty case

packet, full of statements from witnesses, pictures and diagrams, etc. I was given an understudy

role. This means I had to learn all of the six witnesses’ testimonies and learn all the narrative and

crossing questions. But we had a full team, so I never thought I would actually have to go up and

present a case, which is what ended up happening. One of our ‘lawyers’ was having personal

problems so I had to fill in her role. I practiced and practiced and practiced, because, well I never

had to go and actually present myself in a room of people. I remember my hands getting

clammy, and my head was hurting. It was horrible. But I eventually pulled through, and I

realized that not only was it something I had to fix, I actually liked speaking in front of everyone.

So when I moved to North Carolina the following year, I knew I had to join clubs that would

help me realize and refine my talent. I joined my school’s Speech and Debate team along with

Future Business Leaders of America. From there I kept practicing my writing and speaking

skills.

From there I just kept working on myself, and now with two medals under my belt, I plan

to continue on. My journey in public speaking is nowhere near done, and I plan to carry on and

get better and better.