Disneyland Resort celebrates the holidays in Latin-style with “Disney ¡Viva Navidad!”. The grand finale is a commemoration of the Three Kings Day/Día de Reyes from Jan. 3-6, 2014.

As we shared with you when the  ¡Viva Navidad! celebrations started last month, we’ve been extremely excited by the way our culture is being interpreted for our kids to immerse themselves in it. From the fabulous Street Party with Mojiganga puppets, mariachi and samba music, folkloric dancers and the Three Caballeros and Mickey and Minnie in festive attire, to the Latin-inspried food, shows and crafts for kids.

For Día de Reyes, Paradise Pier at Disney’s California Adventure Park invites guest to come and celebrate this special celebration observed mainly by Catholics, but that has become a traditional celebration across Latin America and carried on by Latinos around the world.

Kids will find booths for face painting, arts, crafts and to take special pictures con Melchor, Gaspar y Baltazar.

The Three Caballeros go all out to celebrate Disney ¡Viva Navidad! and kids can have fun decorating these special crowns.

The menu for the celebration takes on some of the favorite Latin dishes. We all raved about the pozole and you can check out how to make it in this video.

We interview Susana Tubert, one of the Disney creatives behind the whole ¡Viva Navidad! concept, to tell us more about how families can celebrate el Día de Reyes Magos at Disneyland Resort.

We also got to chat with Cristian León, Disneyland Resort spokesperson, with Micky, Minnie, a giant mojiganga and folkloric dancers adding the fiesta to our video.

For more videos, pictures and information on Disney’s ¡Viva Navidad! celebration, check out Disneyland.com/Holidays and  our full coverage below:

Disneyland’s Pozole Recipe for Día de Reyes Magos

Disney’s ¡Viva Navidad! Street Party Celebrates Latino Culture and Language

Sneek Peek at Disney’s ¡Viva Navidad! Street Fiesta

La Navidad is Coming to Disneyland Resort: Disney ¡Viva Navidad! 

Disneyland’s Latino-Style ¡Viva Navidad! Street Party: 5 Reasons Why It’s a Must-See

Disneyland Resort has been celebrating la Navidad a lo grande with “Disney ¡Viva Navidad!” throughout the holiday season with beautiful shows, music, activities and food that celebrates nuestra cultura. The grand finale is an observance of Día de Reyes from Friday, Jan. 3 to Monday, Jan. 6.

We were there for a media event to capture some of this Three Kings Day magic, happening at Paradise Pier Gardens in Disney’s California Adventure Park, and got the chance to meet with Chef José Ruiz and learn how they prepare the delicious pozole that has been a guest favorite during ¡Viva Navidad!, among the delicious menu of Latin fare that includes mole, tortas al pastor, sopes, street style tacos, conchas and much more.

If you get a chance to visit Disney’s California Adventure Park, make sure you stop by the Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta in Paradise Pier to grab your bowl of some very delicious and authentic pozole!

For more videos, pictures and information on Disney’s ¡Viva Navidad! celebration, check out Disneyland.com/Holidays and  our full coverage below:

How to Celebrate Three Kings Day/Día de Reyes at Disneyland Resort

Disney’s ¡Viva Navidad! Street Party Celebrates Latino Culture and Language

Sneek Peek at Disney’s ¡Viva Navidad! Street Fiesta

La Navidad is Coming to Disneyland Resort: Disney ¡Viva Navidad! 

Disneyland’s Latino-Style ¡Viva Navidad! Street Party: 5 Reasons Why It’s a Must-See

La Plaza Olvera is where the heart of Mexican culture in Los Angeles beats. This is where all the tourists go to in downtown to get a feel of a traditional plaza with its mercadito, churros, tamales and obligatory knick knacks to buy. But Olvera Street is more than a tourist spot, it’s a historical landmark known as “the birthplace of Los Angeles,” or Nuestra Ciudad de Los Angeles.

So imagine how thrilled we were when Camila’s Spanish music teacher at school — which so happens to be Sara of Music with Sara! — told us the school’s Spanish immersion students had been invited to sing at the Plaza Olvera’s tree lighting ceremony! Of course we signed her up and she was super excited.

They sang a slew of traditional villancicos, as well as adored songs like “Cómo la Flor” and “Tómbola.” The kids were just amazing and our hearts melted every time Sara would get up to let the audience know that these kids are learning in two languages and most of them don’t even have the luxury of speaking Spanish at home. Yet there they were, singing their hearts out en español y en la Plaza Olvera.

Below are a few Instagram videos I made, but I also share more pictures of this beautiful moment, as well as of the other three music and ballet performances my daughter had the last few weeks, over in this post on my Babble column. She’s sure kept us busy y muy orgullosos!!

The Mysteries of Bilingualism II on Psychology Today — Prof. François Grosjean delves into aspects of bilingualism that remain an enigma. In this case, he writes about language choice, code-switching and language interferences — topics that have been researched at the linguistic level, but not at the cognitive and neurolinguistic ones.

¡Aprender español está de moda! on El Sentinel — A look at how more and more people are realizing the importance of learning Spanish as a second language.

New Fort Worth program will graduate bilingual students on the Star-Telegram — Parents in Fort Worth whose children are attending dual language immersion elementary schools won’t have to worry about what’ll happen to their kids once they move on to middle and high school thanks to a new school, World Languages Institute, that will be open next fall.

Constant need for bilingual volunteers, more so during holidays on Journal and Courier — Interesting read about the need for bilingual volunteers to serve as translators in charitable organizations like the Salvation Army.

If you are a family with multiple cultures represented, a family that has immigrated to a new country, a mixed race family, an interfaith family, una familia multilingüe, an adoptive family, an expat family, a host family, holidays are a balancing act of choosing “which,” “how,” and “when” to incorporate the different traditions and customs.

In our family, my husband is from Mexico, I am from the U.S., and we have two biological daughters, and two sons who are adopted from China and Ethiopia. Out of serendipity, many important holidays from our four cultures fall within a 3-month period.

From November through January (and sometimes February!), our multicultural family celebrates Día de los Muertos, Thanksgiving, St. Nicholas Day, Día de la Virgen de Guadalupe, Las Posadas, Noche Buena, Christmas, New Year’s (both “western” and “Chinese/Lunar”), Genna (Ethiopian Christmas), Reyes Magos, and Timkat (Ethiopian, “Epiphany”) and a few birthdays. Whew! Just typing it out, I’m already making lists in my head of things I need to do and plans I need to organize.

At the beginning, when our kids were younger, we would haphazardly put things together at the last minute: “Isn’t tomorrow Reyes Magos? Should we get the kids something?” or “Let’s go out for Ethiopian food for Genna today.” We didn’t put a lot of thought into teaching the reason behind the traditions, or explaining why the holidays were celebrated and their cultural importance. In fact, because we didn’t have a plan, we would completely skip holidays sometimes!

When our older kids were about 6 or 7, my husband and I decided to make the traditions more intentional. Family traditions are a key component to healthy family relationships: they strengthen family bonds, teach our children our family values, give our kids a sense of identity and security within our family, and instill pride in our children as they develop their cultural heritage. Think about it: the traditions we make with our children create special memories that most likely, they will pass on to their children.

Traditions do not have to be complicated, take a lot of time, or cost a lot of money, but I would argue that they should be deliberate and repeated consistently in order for them to truly become a part of your family culture. In my type-A world, the first thing to do to get organized is to make a list.

And so, on a “date night” to the café at our local bookstore, my husband and I sat down with a notebook and made up a calendar of the holidays that we would like to celebrate with our kids and which traditions we wanted to incorporate. We each had a strong view of the US and Mexican inclusions, but China and Ethiopia required us to do additional research (both on-line and asking our Chinese and Ethiopian friends).

Some of the traditions are simple and quite common: hanging our homemade stockings by the chimney as I had always done as a girl; putting up the Nativity scene as a family as my husband had always done in Mexico; making Christmas cookies together. Others involve meshing traditions from two or more cultures: we now set up the Christmas tree while listening to Christmas music from around the world and eating tapas and Chinese dumplings, and this time of year we read tons of books about Christmas in Mexico and in the U.S.

We wrote everything down, even if it was just attending celebrations as a ritual: visiting the Ethiopian church festival for their Genna (Christmas) celebration; partying with adoptive families at the Chinese Consulate’s annual Chinese New Year event; going to our church for their Día de la Virgen de Guadalupe mass (that is always followed by folkloric dances and amazing food!).

It’s been three years since we’ve made the family calendar, and every year it seems we add new family traditions – sparklers on Noche Buena, a new annual museum exhibit for Dia de los Muertos, and we started inviting friends over every January for a rosca de reyes party. For our family, raising our children to be proud of their cultural background is as important as raising them to be bilingual. Celebrations and their corresponding customs are the perfect way to pass on your cultural values and heritage, don’t you think?

What are your favorite holidays traditions? How do you balance the different cultures in your family?

Enzo has made incredible progress in English, and just when I wonder if English has replaced Spanish as his first language, Enzo surprises me by saying things like “Mama, en español por favor.” (Mama, in Spanish please.) He was referring to one of his favorite TV shows, Doc McStuffins, which I usually play for him in Spanish. I was, of course, thrilled. It was very different from a meltdown he had one morning when I switched the Doc McStuffins episode that his dad had started for him from English to Spanish… he started crying and started saying “English mama English.”

I was sad at that moment, thinking that he definitely preferred everything in English now. But thinking about these two moments, I now realize that it wasn’t that Enzo preferred English to Spanish, it was that since his father had started watching the show with him, he wanted to watch it in English, as he usually does with his dad. When I changed the language on him, it threw him for a loop, and that is what made him upset. (I also know this because sometimes I change from English to Spanish when a show has already started, and he doesn’t say a word about it.)

All this to say that I am reassured that Enzo still loves Spanish, and that English hasn’t completely taken over! Just when I feel reassured about one language, the holidays are coming up and soon Enzo will be immersed in French for a whole week before I join him. I am very excited about this experience for him, and at the same time I can’t help but feel a tiny bit nervous.

As Enzo’s vocabulary increases, it is interesting to see the new obstacles he faces; for example, with masculine and feminine words. Subjects aren’t so much an issue. When we teach him new words, we say “LA manzana” or “EL carro” or “UN zapato” or “UNA media.” I realize though, that he doesn’t yet understand that masculine words have masculine adjectives and same for feminine. This, of course, is a concept he will grasp as he gets older. But for now, it is funny to hear him repeat what I say, for example: “Enzo, Mama está cansada.” (Mommy is tired.) Enzo’s reply is “No, Enzo está cansada.” Of course, I explain to him that Mama is a girl, so she is cansada, and Enzo is a boy so he is cansado… but I’m not sure he has completely picked up on it yet.

As language learning continues, I realize that I will constantly be facing new challenges and that it is incredibly important to be consistent…and of course, repeat, repeat, repeat.

{Photo by dbrekke}

I volunteer in my boys’ classrooms when I can, and we make a point of going to school events. One of my favorite things to do when it comes to school, though, is just hang out. They’re still young enough to get excited when I have a day off and can come have lunch with them in the cafeteria, and when I pick them up at aftercare on the early side, I like sitting with them and the other kids at the table while they finish writing and drawing, or wrapping up games of chess and Connect Four.

In the beginning, I got a lot of strange looks from their classmates — because I would sit down and chat with my sons in Spanish. The confusion, though, immediately gave way to curiosity and I was peppered with questions. What language is that? Is that Spanish? I didn’t know they spoke Spanish. Where are you from? Do you speak any other languages? And they listened attentively to my answers. The boys and I only speak Spanish at home. I lived in another country when I was a little girl. I only spoke Spanish with my mother. My job is helping people who speak different languages understand each other. I learned French, too, in France and in Africa.

The part I didn’t expect, and the part I love the most, is that after the questions the floodgates open and I get to hear all about their experiences. My parents went to Costa Rica once! I spent the summer in Russia with my grandparents. I learned my numbers in Spanish in preschool. I love listening to them, and I love building on their questions. Okay, let me hear your numbers. Did you learn your colors, too? Do you know how to say “school” in Spanish? And on and on we go.

In their eyes, I have become The Mom Who Speaks Spanish, and I like it. There are a few children who I know speak at least some Spanish at home, and I’ve taken to only speaking Spanish to them, as well. I think of the adults who encouraged me when I was little and I wonder if some day it might make the tiniest bit of a difference. At the very least, I hope some of them might get excited about languages.

I was walking out of school one day last week and one of the second-grade boys came running after me. “Mrs. Lane? I forgot to tell you the other day that my grandmother used to be a Spanish teacher.” I smile at him and start asking questions. Do you know what grade she taught? Did she teach it in grade school or high schoolers? That is so cool, I’m glad you told me.

I am The Mom Who Speaks Spanish.

{Photo by woodleywonderworks}

I was with my children in a store last month looking at Halloween costumes.  As usual, our conversation was completely in Spanish. I noticed a mother observing our interactions, and when I smiled at her, she shared her own bilingual adventures with me. Having been born and raised in Mexico, she initially only spoke Spanish to her son. Unfortunately, when he started school, he rebelled against Spanish and refused to speak it. Sadly, this mother gave up and switched to using English with him. Her son won the language battle, but lost out on the chance to be bilingual.

What amazed me about this situation is that she is a native Spanish speaker, and has decided to use English with her children. Spanish is my second language. I didn’t even start to study Spanish until I was 17 years old, and yet, my children speak fluent Spanish. It has been a major effort, but the road to bilingualism has been one of my most rewarding parenting experiences.

Don’t give up on Spanish! There will be problems. Address the issues so that you will have better strategies for dealing with the challenges. These are some of the common issues I have had to address:

1. Spanish is not my first language. Even my husband, who grew up speaking German at home, feels that English is still his first language. Speaking to my children in Spanish was initially very difficult, but with time, speaking Spanish became more natural. Now that six years have passed, it would feel strange to speak to my sons in English. I feel comfortable using Spanish with them, and it is our special language. Keep using Spanish! No matter how tempting it is to switch to English, stick with it! It will get easier with time.
2. I lack vocabulary in Spanish. Now that my boys are getting older, some of our discussions are a bit more challenging. They have recently become interested in outer space and trying to explain gravity to them proved difficult. I watched some educational videos from Khan Academy in Spanish and learned, not only the scientific concepts to explain to my son, but the vocabulary in Spanish that I was lacking. We are learning together!
3. Your child refuses to respond to you in Spanish. Keep using Spanish and never give up! That was the advice my mother-in-law gave me. She continued to speak to my husband and his brother in German, including when they would only respond in English. Eventually they realized the benefits to being bilingual and started to use German, even taking courses to further their literacy skills. Don’t give up! The bilingual rebellion stage will not last forever.

 
You can do it! I have been successful so far. It has been a challenge, but the boys and I have learned together. Stick with it! Don’t give up! If I can raise bilingual children, you can too! It may seem difficult and challenging, but the rewards for you and your children will be worth the effort.

{Photo by CarbonNYC}

Our little multilingual family has some exciting news! We will be moving to South America (Ecuador) in 2014!

This definitely poses new challenges and exciting opportunities as a family who has multilingualism at the center of mostly everything we do (i.e., doctors visits, children’s books). We are already thinking about how our linguistic interactions will change as we establish ourselves in our new home aka the middle of the world.

For example, we have considered changing our use of Spanish for English with our children once we are in Ecuador, especially if we decide to put them in a Spanish school. We have also started to get really excited about the different dialects and languages our girls will be exposed to which include: Quechua, Spanish (& other Spanish varieties), English, & possibly a fourth as many of the private schools in Ecuador offer other European languages (i.e., French, German).

Another change we have already started implementing here is the purchasing of English books! In an earlier post I wrote about getting rid of all of our children’s books written in English that we had in our home in order to increase the status of Spanish in our daily life. I am now having a blast purchasing English (and bilingual) books to add to our collection.

On another note, I am also overthinking the challenges that lie ahead. For example, I, personally, have never lived in another country. In fact, I pride myself in learning Spanish in the U.S. and wonder how the new context will shape my children and I as multilinguals. In other words, I strongly identify as a Spanish speaking Chicana and hope I will be able to pass that on to my nenas. I look forward to sharing our journey over the next few months as we make this huge international move. Please feel free to offer any advice (such as books to read) about moving internationally with little children.

{Photo by ximenacab}

As a multicultural and biracial familia, I was pretty clear about wanting to raise a bilingual child. Ah yes! It would be simple! I would speak to our child in Spanish and my husband would speak to him in English. Sound familiar? Yes, we were going to use the OPOL (One Parent One Language) method. However, things are not always as easy as they seem, right? You see, I had the desire but not a plan. I fell into the comfort of just speaking to our baby in English from the day he was born. After all, everyone spoke in English too!

During our son’s 4-year-old annual check-up, his pediatrician excitedly asked, “Is he bilingual?” Those three words weighed heavily on me. Other than counting his numbers and the basic colors that he learned from Dora in Spanish, no, he wasn’t bilingual. That’s when reality hit me! I started to panic! Literally to panic! I felt that the precious years for my baby to learn another language from birth to 5 was quickly slipping through my fingers. What was I going to do? Was it too late?

I started to strategize and make a plan. I started slowly by using the Language Boundary method from the book 7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child by Naomi Steiner. In this method, you use the target language during a specific situation, such as, time of day, location, or depending on an activity. I used this method during our bedtime story–speaking and reading to him in Spanish and then translating into English.

Then I had the opportunity to enroll him in a weekly preschool Spanish language immersion program. He was learning Spanish with other monolingual children his same age. He was excited and eager to learn Spanish. This is when I went into full Spanish-speaking mode with my child. At home, I started using the OPOL method. We read books, sang songs and played games, all in Spanish. I created opportunities for our child to speak Spanish, such as volunteering at his preschool summer camp a Spanish-language program and he was my little assistant. We also had the opportunity to spend two weeks in Puerto Rico during the summer immersed in a 100% Spanish environment.

Today I reflect on this past year and our journey into bilingualism. Looking back my only regret was not having started his language learning sooner. Nevertheless, speaking from my own personal experience, I can tell you that it’s never too late to start your child’s language learning.

My now 5-year-old speaks and understands Spanish very well. His language learning is still a work in progress, but if someone asks, “Is he bilingual?” I can happily respond, “Yes, he is!”

Frances is a part-time blogger, mommy and wife of a beautiful multicultural familia. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration with a certification in Human Resources. She blogs about heritage, culture, bilingualism, multicultural children’s books, and discovering the world through her son’s eyes. You can follow her at Discovering The World Through My Son’s Eyes.

{Photo by Que ma en}