The cuban swimmer analysis

It seems to me that the grandmother only speeks spanish and the T.V. reporters only speek english. In addition to that Simon seems to speek more like an American teenager. he says stuff like "Way to go" and "Man" and "Forget Him". This is uncommon because he is Cuban and yet unlike the rest of his family he seems to have adjusted to the American culture very well. I think the rest of the family mostly speeks spanish when they are trying to keep their conversation private from the helicopter or when they are emotional over something. The Grandmother speeks pretty much all spanish. I think the author was trying to say that the older generation of immigrants and in this case cubans were used to being discriminated against and excluded from conversations so they just spoke in their native tongue. On the other hand the T.V. reporters only spoke english. There are two reasons for this. One is because they are on T.V. in America and no one would understand them if they were to speek spanish. And number two it signifies that Americans were not willing to reach out to the immigrants and preferred to simply make fun of or belittle them. For example the reporters say that the family are simple people and that Margarita has basically no chance of winning. I think the speech of Simon is very important because he seems to be farther away from the rest of his family and yet he appears to have adjusted to english in America better than any of them. Margarita is closer to the Father because he is her coach and he is trying to live vicariously through her so her english isn't as Americanized as Simon's. I think that the author is drawing us towards the idea that the closer an immigrated family stays together the more they will tend to speek in their native tongue and the less they will speek english. This will result in the kind of speech that the parents have but not that Simon has.