You say potato, I say Pototo
Today in class we read the popular poem by Gustavo Pérez Firmat titled “Bilingual Blues.” One of my students really connected with this poem. The poem itself is used in a lot of language classes; several textbooks include it because it seems to be accessible to students. In reality, the poem is full of references that are not easily explained just by looking up the words in Spanish. They are deeply personal cultural references. [This is a culture class I am teaching and not a basic language class.] You can read the poem (see previous link), but one line reads, “you say potato, I say Pototo.” I told my students that Pototo was a person, but not necessarily a specific person. Essentially, I was making my best guess.
So, this student who really connected with the poem, decided he would write the poet and just let him know that this composition really spoke to him. My student said that Pérez Firmat wrote him back immediately and explained that Pototo was actually part of a comedy duo, Pototo y Filomeno, from the 1950s in Cuba. Very cool. My student reads the poem on Culturas Latinoamericanas, writes about it there, is personally moved by it, finds the poet’s email address, writes him, and enters directly into dialog with him. Amazing. And now I know who Pototo is.