Texican vs. Why Don't You Know Spanish?

When people ask I usually tell them I speak it. I pronounce my last name with strong "o's" and and flip of my tongue for the "r" but no matter how many novellas I can watch and understand or how many Juanes songs I know the words to, nothing can replace the fact that my speaking Spanish speaking ability is hugely defective.
I've spent the last few days pouring over Spanish textbooks, grammar books and dictionaries in a frantic effort to perfect a language that my grandparents speak, my parents speak and is often the code for telling secrets around non-speakers. Kitchen language is what I sometimes call it because it's the language that splurts out of our Texican mouths at almost any family dinner, birthday or holiday with lots of eating involved. Even though the language holds a dear place in my heart, unfortunately it only has a small place in my brain.
Growing up biculturally has distinct advantages, but growing up monolingual when typical Americans expect someone with my last name to speak Spanish can be a difficult burden. Hispanics who expect all Hispanics to speak Spanish, can often deliver the worst verbal blows to our cultural self-esteem. "Why don't you speak Spanish?" "Didn't your parents ever teach you?" "Aren't your parents from Mexico?" "You're not a real Mexican if you don't know Spanish." "You don't have an identity without a language."
To all of you Hispanic who have heard these arguments time and time again, I feel for your annoyance. I'm usually armed with any number of responses: first, no, my parents aren't from Mexico (in fact you'd have to go back three generations for any record of border crossing); secondly, my parents rarely speak to me in Spanish; and third I've tried to learn the language.
I think more so what those Hispanics fear is not your language ability, but your acculturation. They feel that if you're not with them, well then you must be against them trying to acculturate the entire Hispanic-American population with your limited Spanish proficiency and it's a shame that you are the way you are. What they fail to understand is that cultural identity takes on so many different shapes, sounds and colors, especially from a Tejano perspective. It's made up of a dense tapestry of shared experiences, history and location. Take a lot of Mexico, mix in some ranchero/cowboy, Indian and throw in a handful of Americanisms and the official Spanglish language and you've got Tejano culture - a sweet fusion of experiences.
While my Spanish impairments might hinder me from getting a job, I'm at no risk of an impaired identity. Would it be fair to say a mute person is less American because they can't speak? Where I do agree that language is a significant part of one's identity, I believe that one's knowledge of cultural traditions, history and shared experiences make up a greater part of that identity. When you don't have those, only then are you at risk of losing yourself.