I speak only English.

From the day I was born, my parents, grandparents and other relatives spoke to me only in English, but it was more a function of not being taught Spanish than not wanting to learn.

And I'm not alone. The Rocky Mountain News has a story on its Web site that says third-generation Latinos speak English as their primary language.

The truth is, Latinos in America today need to know both languages. English to function and Spanish to remember.

I am a seventh-generation Coloradan. My grandma tells me this with great pride sometimes. Her family spent a good portion of their lives in Trinidad, Colo., before moving to Boulder and eventually Denver. This means that my family was here when Trinidad was most certainly part of Mexico in the early 1800s.

The other side of my family moved north from Las Vegas, N.M., where both of my grandparents were born in the 1920s. My family was one of the about 7,000 families in New Mexico that stayed in the United States on its land after the United States won the Mexican-American War.

So when both sides of my family moved north to Denver in the mid-1900s, they adopted American ways, though it was itself in its infancy.

My grandfather was in the Air Force during the Korean War. My grandmother from the other side retired comfortably after working in the Denver Public Schools administration offices for decades. She married a Czechoslovakian Pole whose parents were born in Europe. Both sides of my family had Spanish speakers. I had relatives that spoke relatively little English.

But, despite my mother's pleas that I would need both Spanish and English, my grandparents refused to teach me and my brother Spanish. My mother is half-white. She knew I would need Spanish to expand my horizons than for no other reason. As a journalist, my life would be much easier if I knew Spanish.

I know many Spanish words. My grandparents still speak in Spanish when they speak to each other. But they pay taxes, they love what America has given them, they love this country.

You don't need to speak only English to love this country. They are proof of that.

They broke their backs so I would speak only English.

And they're not alone.