Bicultural Vida

My plan was to write about a completely different topic today, but something pretty amazing has been happening the last couple of days with Vanessa in her Kindergarten class. When I informed her teacher that Vanessa is bilingual, she told me there were two kids in her classroom who also spoke Spanish, but are not bilingual yet and so they are attending ESL classes. I wanted to ask who they were and if I could meet their parents, but IRead More ...

We are deep in Disneyland on a family vacation, tired but happy. The girls have been enjoying the music, make-believe, and spectacle that is this childhood fantasyland. I am happy to report from the glittery trenches that there is plenty of Spanish to be heard on main street, churros in every land, and a pretty decent Mexican restaurant in the park as well. Looking around at the staff that works here in the Happiest Place on Earth, I see manyRead More ...

We were in William Sonoma, admiring Le Creuset’s brand new color of cast iron cookware (a turquoise blue, the hue of Miami beach water), when a brown skinned woman wearing an apron embroidered with WS approached us. As her steps drew near, I dreamt of telling the woman, “Yes, we’ll take every piece you have in this whimsy turquoise, please. I’m Cuban and belong in Miami, just like this Dutch oven belongs in my kitchen. Thank you very much.” ButRead More ...

I get a bit jealous when I read about other contributors’ travels to visit family in Spanish speaking countries. What a great way to not only connect with family, but also to reinforce the Spanish being taught at home in the United States. Unfortunately, I don’t have family abroad to visit, but I was convinced that my own children would greatly benefit from the experience of visiting another country and being immersed in Spanish. Back in high school I startedRead More ...

When I first started writing for SpanglishBaby, my son and I were going it alone. I was a single parent trying to keep up with speaking my non-native language to him full-time. It was challenging, but relatively predictable. Now, I have taken on a whole new set of challenges regarding parenting and bilingualism. I am in a relationship with a wonderful man who has two daughters, ages 9 and 11. The girls both know Spanish, but have quite different viewsRead More ...

My firstborn is turning 5 tomorrow. I can’t even begin to tell you how difficult this is for me to believe. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was trying to figure out if it was time to go to the hospital to give birth to her. A week from today she starts Kindergarten and they tell me that once they start school, time flies even faster. Is that even possible? Anyhow, we celebrated her birthday yesterday withRead More ...

This picture is a perfect reflection of how we are trying to raise our daughter with multiple cultures and multiple languages. One foot lies on the northern side of the equator representing her North American (Mexican-American) roots while the other foot lies on the southern side of the equator representing her South American (Ecuadorian) heritage. This may be a stretch, but I think it’s an appropriate one considering our meager attempt to add a third language, but her lack ofRead More ...

I’m sitting here writing this post from my mother’s home in Costa Rica, on what is our third annual summer trip here. Our plan is to keep coming for one month every year, and I’ve been curious to see what changes I might see year to year as my children get older. Yet, as I reread the post I wrote this time last year I had to laugh because everything I wrote then applies this year, too — I almostRead More ...