Robin struggled more than Ernesto when they immigrated to America. By then he was eight, buck toothed and energetic, and far too set in with Spanish to have English come naturally to him. Ernesto, who was just about to turn six, picked it up much easier.
It made Robin feel stupid when Mamá would quiz them on English and he would have to work harder than his kid brother just to be worse at it.
If he was being honest, he didn't understand why it was so important to speak english- and only English, Mijo!- here. Wasn't America supposed to be one of the most diverse places in the world? That was why they moved here, Mamá assured.
He understood quickly. When he spoke Spanish, or took time to translate in his head, or let his accent come across too strong, people would look at him funny. His teachers treated him like he was slow and he just kept getting detention for being disrespectful. Robin wasn't trying to be disrespectful- at first, anyway- but they saw him roll his eyes up and stick his tongue out in concentration and decided that for him.
Kids on the playground called him terrible things. Eventually, Robin learned to let the words roll off his back like water from a duck, but he never forgot. Robin held grudges. Robin wrapped his knuckles with duct tape and knocked Rory Harlow out cold after he insulted Ernesto's chubby cheeks and brown skin.
Robin won fights. But he didn't win tests, not when they were timed and used words it took a minute to translate properly. That didn't make him stupid. Robin knew he was smarter than half the dickheads who picked on him, and if he were allowed to speak the words that brewed in his chest, hot and rapid, he could run circles around them in schooling.
He wasn't, so he lowered his head in class and fought to do what everyone else could do so easily. The same head was raised up high, nose in the air as if smelling something unpleasant, when Moose went after his race. Higher still were his fists, which came down like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.
Ernesto looked up to him, for that. For his strength and his bravery and the blood coming from yet another broken nose.
Ernesto had to take a minute to translate words from English back into his native tongue when speaking with Tío Tomás and Mamá at home. Ernesto finished his tests, got stellar grades, shied away from conflict, even the small arguments that Robin revelled in.
Nobody ever called Ernesto disrespectful. Nobody ever called him stupid. Or girly, or weird, because Ernesto kept his hair short and Robin let it touch his shoulders, adoring the feeling of freedom it brought.
And nobody tried shit with him, because Robin, despite everything about his brother that he scorned and envied and wished would rub off on him, just a little, would defend poor, wimpy Ernesto until he could defend himself. That was what big brothers did.
And Robin, tongue tumbling over English phrases that went in one ear and out the other, was a damned good brother.
