Too Hispanic to speak English and too American to speak Spanish:

A specific moment in my life I remember that came up with regard to my language development was one of my very first interactions with language outside my home. Growing up my grandma took care of me a lot and the only problem with that was that she did not speak any English so practically every day I just heard or saw things in Spanish. It wasn’t until I started going to school that I began learning English. Even though I began learning English in school, unless my older siblings were with me all I spoke or heard at home was Spanish and so not being able to take and practice my English at home has always put me a little behind compared to the other kids. But, blinded by my childlike innocence and simplicity I did not pay too much mind to this issue and so this kept going on for a couple of years and it got to the point where my Spanish was more advanced compared to my English.
But things began to change in my life when my grandma due to some unforeseen circumstances had to move away with my aunt and so the person whom I always learned Spanish from was gone and so I decided to try a little harder in English, but even so, my English was pretty bad, it got to the point were in class when we would do read around I would ask the teacher to skip me or I would try and leave the classroom with my excuse being that I needed to use the bathroom. Anytime I tried reading or formulating any long sentences I would end up constantly stuttering and mumbling my words and eventually due to embarassment, I would simply just stop trying to talk. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I spoke broken English and so I thought it better to no longer speak English in school and at home the person who I could speak Spanish to for hours on end wasn’t there.
After a while, I decided to try and I talked to my brother and confided in him my problems and he would try and help me by making time and going over my English work with me. He collected this series of books called “Diary of A Wimpy Kid” and he would lend me the books everyday so I could read them. I ended up really enjoying the books and would constantly read and reread them, they were for the most part picture books but did also contain a good number of words, and because of that I loved reading them because they were simple enough for me to understand and even when I did not understand some words I would just as my brother for help or try and understand it on my own. Both the books and my brother were constantly teaching me new things in English, I began to speak English more and more, it finally got to a point where although my English was not perfect, I was no longer embarrassed to speak in class or with other people.
Nevertheless, I still wanted to try and perfect my English more so I would spend most of my time practicing English, which also meant that my Spanish was left collecting dust since it was mostly spoken at home for my grandma as both my parents were also practicing and trying to perfect their English, and my siblings had already learned to speak it in school. I was now proud of my ability to speak English, until for summer vacation my family decided to go visit family back in Ecuador. I was excited because I was going to see family members whom I had only met through video calls or from pictures my parents had. This vacation was going to be both a way to connect to my hispanic culture which I had always adored after having heard the many stories my grandma and parents told me about and also this was a new experience for me.
Finally, when we got off the plane my parents told me and my siblings to only speak in Spanish because no one over there understood or knew how to speak English, and because in some places over there speaking English could potentially be dangerous as the people from over there had this idea that everyone who spoke English/Americans were all rich and so it would put a target on peoples back. After having practically only spoke English for a long time when it came time to say hi to my relatives I noticed my Spanish had gotten pretty bad, I would constantly stutter or slur my words and randomly say things in English or even on occasion in Spanglish (which was basically using words that are a combination of english and spanish words even though they were not actual words with any real meaning) since I had forgotten how to say them in Spanish, because of that my family members would, of course, start looking at me weirdly since sometimes they could only understand about half of what I was saying. It got to a point where my siblings and my parents, also having been embarrassed by my inability to speak Spanish, would just tell me to say what I wanted to say to them in English and they would just translate for me. I began to realize that my Spanish, a language I grew up with and loved, had left my mind and my cousins would start making fun of me and they would all call me an “Americano” or a “Gringo” which is just what you would call a foreigner usually from America. I slowly began to talk less and less throughout our trip until I would only speak after having meticulously thought beforehand about what I was going to say and making sure I knew how to properly say it, and even then I hated it. I began to hope for this 5 week vacation to come to an end