Last week we had lots of fun asking the SpanglishBaby Familia on Facebook to share with us their favorite dichos. You know, those proverbial and poetic phrases full of wisdom you heard again and again from your abuela, tías, mamá y papá and now you find yourself repeating (and preaching!) to your kids at any given moment. You suddenly realize you inherited more from your mami than only her good skin and laugh.

The other beauty about dichos is that they transcend dialects and borders across Latin America and Spain. Some may be said a bit differently in some countries, but most stay the same.

Dichos You Love

We got thirty responses when we asked you to share your favorite dicho, and here are some of them:

Al que madruga, Dios lo ayuda.

A quien no le gusta el caldo, se le dan tres tazas.

Haz bien y no mires a quien.

Hay pájaros en el alambre.

Dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres.

Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos.

Mejor solo que mal acompañado.

En donde sea está, menos en misa.

No hay mal que por bien no venga.

El que mucho se despide pocas ganas tiene de irse.

Oídos sordos a palabras necias.

La paciencia vence lo que la dicha no alcanza.

Poco a poco se llega lejos.

Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente.

No lavas ni prestas la batea.

El que nace pa’ tamal … Del cielo le caen las hojas.

No hay feo sin su gracia, ni galán sin su defecto.

El que es perico donde quiera es verde.

El que mucho abarca, poco aprieta.

Para atrás ni para coger impulso.

El que se va a Sevilla pierde su silla.

Son las cosas del destino, el que nace lechón muere cochino.

Nadie sabe lo que hay en la olla más que la cuchara que la menea.

A buen entendedor, pocas palabras.

Lo que no mata – engorda.

Pórtese bien que nada le cuesta.

Ese huevo quiere sal.

Bebé que no llora, no mama.

Anda y anda la gallina al huevo hasta que lo rompe!

Didn´t see your favorite dicho here? Share it with us in the comments and we´ll add it to our Dichos y Refranes Pinterest board! Check out the Pinterest board and feel free to repin as you like. Thanks to Dariela of MamiTalks for creating the dichos boards for us!

Thanks for being a subscriber and reading our posts! We'd love to have you join the conversation on Facebook and get to know you on Twitter.

Living in a border town like El Paso, Texas, it was not unusual to cross the border down to Mexico on a weekly basis. Mexico was ten minutes away and Sunday morning mass, breakfast and maybe even a haircut were our Ciudad Juarez family day trips. This was a custom for many families living in a border town. As we headed back to the U.S. the wait at the crossing bridge seemed an eternity as kids. We napped, read the latest issue of a Periquita comic or we enjoyed what the bridge vendors had to offer: Mexican candy.

Cocadas always stood out to me due to their bright pink color. I really wanted to recreate them exactly as I remembered. This February, we are steering away from the Valentine chocolate cliché and playing with coconut instead. This dessert is pretty simple and made in less than an hour. You little ones will enjoy stirring the coconut mixture and cutting out cocada shapes with plastic cookie cutters once the dessert has cooled. Enjoy and happy Valentine’s Day!

Cocadas for your Valentine

2-14 oz. cans sweetened, condensed milk
1-14 oz. bag of sweetened, flaked coconut
1 tbsp. honey
1 tsp. vanilla extract
optional: red or neon pink food coloring

Preheat oven to 350°.

Line an 11” x 17” baking sheet with parchment paper and set lined pan aside.

In a large mixing bowl, add sweetened, condensed milk, honey and vanilla mix with a strong (preferably wooden) spoon.   Stir until all ingredients have been completely mixed.

Add a few drops of food coloring and mix well until desired shade of pink or red has been reached.

Spread the coconut and milk mixture onto the prepared baking sheet. Using a flat wooden spoon, push the mixture evenly on pan, including corners. Bake for 35 minutes or until the top begins to lightly brown.

Cool for at least an hour.  Cut into squares or use a lightly oiled circle shape cookie cutter.  Enjoy or store in a tightly sealed container.

Makes approximately 20 pieces.

1. shredded coconut

2. add condensed milk, honey and vanilla

3. stir and mix well

4. add food coloring (optional)

5. stir until colored evenly

6. pour in baking dish and bake until golden

7. remove from oven, let cool completely and enjoy!

Thanks for being a subscriber and reading our posts! We'd love to have you join the conversation on Facebook and get to know you on Twitter.

There is one thing I have noticed about SpanglishBaby’s (and other parenting blogs’) readership that I don’t like: very few fathers are represented! This is nothing new; moms have historically been the ones attending playdates and talking about the trends in diaper bags. Still, fatherhood has changed considerably and, when it comes to maintaining a home culture and language, the presence of Papi is just as important as that of Mami.

Since my significant other is one of the most admirable fathers I have ever known, I decided to ask him a few questions about how he feels about his role in our multicultural family. Christian is father to two beautiful preteen girls and stepfather to my 4-year-old son.

Why did you decide to raise your kids to be bilingual, and how committed are you to this decision?

Spanish has been an important factor in my life, connecting me to friends and family members I wouldn’t have otherwise known. I am very committed to giving this same advantage and cultural pride to my children. Even though we speak lots of English at home because of homework and daily rituals, I still believe that Spanish is their first language and I never cease to emphasize that. 

Who reinforces Spanish the most for your kids?

My parents have been instrumental in keeping up Spanish at home, because they are not comfortable speaking English. From a young age, my daughters became accustomed to speaking only Spanish with their abuelos and it reassures me every time I hear it that they are part of the Spanish-speaking world that I call my own. 

Do fathers and mothers play different roles in giving kids bilingual skills?

Fathers should be just as involved as mothers in all aspects of parenting, but especially in maintaining a native heritage and language. Children of both genders look up to fathers differently, and I feel that if I portray a genuine interest in and respect for Spanish, they will emulate that.

What do you wish you had done differently throughout the years regarding Spanish and your children?

I would have spoken more Spanish at home with their mother, but more importantly, I would have spent TIME reading, writing, and discussing life in my native language. As second-generation Americans, my kids are more likely to lose the drive to speak Spanish, and I should have been more conscious of this when they were very young.

What is the best way for fathers to approach school-aged children who are resistant to speaking Spanish?

Consistency is key. It must be an expectation, along with chores and manners, but also must come from a genuine place. Children can feel when we aren’t being true to our own values. Since they do as we do, not as we say, we must also force ourselves to use Spanish every chance we get, or we will lose a bit of that sincerity and our kids will follow suit.

When was the last time you asked your father, brother, uncle, boyfriend, or husband about his commitment to raising truly bilingual kids?

Let’s make a concerted effort to open the conversation to the male voices, and remember that they are more than just backup.

Thanks for being a subscriber and reading our posts! We'd love to have you join the conversation on Facebook and get to know you on Twitter.

Related Posts

Thank you,

Frank

Hi Frank,

I hear your frustration… I can assure you that you are anything but a failure – you have only just begun the long journey of raising bilingual kids! So don’t give up…!

If it’s any consolation, I had a similar struggle with my son when he was around 3-4 years-old. His receptive language was very good (i.e., he understood practically everything in Spanish), but his productive language was limited. Not only that, but he actively refused to speak in Spanish, and he resisted reading or watching TV in Spanish. I can tell you that now, at 8 years-old, he is doing MUCH better (you can see for yourself by viewing some of Niko’s videos in Spanish on our YouTube channel).

How did this transformation happen? I wish I could say with certainty. I will tell you that we just kept on speaking to him in Spanish, reading in Spanish (when he wasn’t too resistant), and exposing him to the language on TV and in movies. At some point he started to identify with my husband’s Colombian culture (he told a classmate on the school bus that he was Colombian!), and even using Spanish words here and there. Productive language continues to be a challenge, so two years ago we enrolled him in a heritage language Spanish school on Saturdays (he doesn’t love it, but that’s ok!)

With your children, the key is patience and consistency. It’s best not to show your frustration if your kids resist your efforts. I found it better to use “tricks” like reverse psychology (i.e., “I am so glad I get to read this great book all by myself!”) and pick and choose your battles. You can also access many excellent online games and videos. Here’s a quick list (you can access my entire collection on my Delicious bookmark page or on my website):

• Primera escuela
• Juegos arco iris
• Mi disegni
• Chillola
• Hello-world
• 123 Teach Me
• Learn 4 Good

Your daughter’s accent can be improved with more access to hearing the language. It is not too late for her to develop a native-like accent. I can’t tell from your post, but it seems as if you are the native speaker of Spanish and your wife is a native English speaker. If this is the case, you should speak Spanish to your kids, and your wife can speak in English. According to research, this is the best way to develop a balanced bilingual. If you speak to her mainly in Spanish, you shouldn’t need to hire a tutor.

I hope this helps, Frank. You can do this! Stick with it and you’ll see the results. Buena surety!

Lori

Thanks for being a subscriber and reading our posts! We'd love to have you join the conversation on Facebook and get to know you on Twitter.

Related Posts

Calling all creative minds across the nation from grades Kindergarten through Third! PBS KIDS GO! has launched its annual writing contest and this year we spotted something very exciting on the contest’s rule page:

“Non-English text must be translated on the same page and the translation text must adhere to word count.”

What does this mean? It means that your child can write or dictate their story in Spanish or other heritage language as long as an English translation accompanies it on the same page! Chévere!

Looking through the website at the 2011 submissions and winners -seeing the creativity that went into what the kids wrote and the pictures they drew, it’s pretty awesome. Knowing that PBS KIDS will be making sure children can write their story in whichever language they feel inspired to write in is even more awesome.

In addition, we’ve learned that PBS KIDS is working on a Spanish language version of the entry form so that parents who aren’t fluent English speakers, can still help their kids enter the contest. Love it!The contest, according to PBS, is “designed to promote the advancement of children’s reading skills through hands-on, active learning” and “encourages children … to celebrate the power of creating stories and illustrations by submitting their own original work.”

Ready to write? A escribir pues!

PBS stations are collaborating with schools, public libraries and other literacy organizations to implement the PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest in their communities but even if your child’s school or library isn’t involved, you can still participate!

Illustrated stories by children ages K-3 can be submitted to local PBS stations. Winners selected by each station receive prizes but are also entered into the national level of the contest where a panel of judges will select winners. National winners will be announced and prizes, including tablets, e-readers and MP3 players will be awarded during summer 2012.

Submitting your child’s story is easy and can be done right on your computer. One really cool benefit of submitting online? – Participants who upload digitally will receive a free animated digital book of their story that they can share with others! Bound copies of the entry are also available for purchase as a keepsake.

For all official rules visit: PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest. Let’s see some bilingual entries, gente!

Thanks for being a subscriber and reading our posts! We'd love to have you join the conversation on Facebook and get to know you on Twitter.

Related Posts

©SpanglishBaby, Ltd All Rights Reserved

It’s hard to believe that in just seven months my girl will be starting a whole new stage in life: kindergarten. That means that we are now deep in the process of touring dual language immersion programs, applications and crossing fingers to get a spot in one of our top choices.

Just three years ago when we launched this blog, I visited what was then Benjamin Franklin Elementary school in the Glendale Unified District in California. We wrote a series of posts about this school and the district because they were one of the few in the Los Angeles County area to successfully implement dual language, or two-way, immersion programs. This particular school, Franklin, had just launched with the German program and were already getting huge requests to launch a Spanish and an Italian program. Thanks to the parents and the district working closely together, the school has now become so wildly popular that in 2011 it received funding to become a language magnet school.

The School We Really Want

Beautiful for them, not the best news for us since we had moved to the Glendale district two years ago just to be eligible to enter Franklin. Now, we will have to join the hundreds of parents praying that luck is with them on February 9th when the public lottery is held to fill the 24 or so spots available in the Spanish DL program in what’s now known as the Franklin Elementary Magnet School.

As you can imagine, we really, really want to get into this school. Not only because it’s a four minute drive from our house, but because the quality of parent and teacher involvement is amazing. Since the school is now only a language magnet (German, Italian, Spanish and, starting in 2012, French), every single parent there is completely invested in making the program a success, and many have emotional and cultural ties to their children being educated in their native languages.

The Draw of the Luck

The way the lottery works is that the first priority goes to siblings. Every single sibling has the right to be placed. Once those slots are taken (and apparently there are a lot of siblings entering this year, much to our chagrin), then the second priority goes to balance out the proportion of native English-language speakers versus Spanish speakers to maintain the 50/50 proportion, as much as possible.

Camila had to attend a language proficiency test in order to place her in the fluent category. I was so nervous because I felt this is our best chance at securing a spot. Thankfully, she totally passed as fluent; marking this as a milestone of the first time her bilingual skills opened up a door for her.

On February 9th we’ll know if she’ll make it in or not. For us, this also means that we’ll know if we’ll have to move or not. Yes, move. We know it’s drastic, but we really want her to attend a dual language immersion program. Luckily, there have been so many DL programs launched in the Los Angeles County area in the last years, but they are scattered all around and most of them are charters or magnets, meaning our girl’s bilingual education and our next neighborhood is bound to be decided by sheer luck.

I’ll keep you posted as to what happens the day of the lottery and which are the other schools on our radar if we don’t get picked for Franklin Elementary Magnet. I’ll also remind you on Feb. 9th to help us with your positive thoughts to get that lottery to pick our name!!

Share:  Would love to read your kindergarten-enrollment stories, especially if your child made it into a charter or magnet.

Thanks for being a subscriber and reading our posts! We'd love to have you join the conversation on Facebook and get to know you on Twitter.

Related Posts

Every time I think about it, I can’t stop laughing. Not the “making-fun-of” kind of laughter, more like the “that’s unbelievable” one.

A couple of days ago, a colleague of mine told me our office assistant was going to make an order for office supplies and she wanted to know what we all needed. He said, “So, if you need any supplies like staples, tape, file folders o tal vez unos biromes, just let her know.”

— ¿Unos qué?, I blurted out.

— Unos biromes, he repeated completely unfazed.

— What in the world is that?, I asked.

— What do you mean? Biromes are, you know, pens. What do you call them?, he asked.

— Lapicero, I said waiting for the wrath from the other Spanish-speakers in our staff to fall upon me.

— Lapicero is a mechanical pen, a Mexican co-worker said.

And a whole conversation about one of my favorite subjects ensued. If you speak Spanish, you know that we have a lot of different names for the same thing depending on where we’re from. The co-worker who uses biromes for pens is from Paraguay and apparently the word is also used in Uruguay and Argentina. Because I’m a lover of words, a quick search helped explain the story behind the word biromes. A ver que les parece.

So what do you call a pen in Spanish?

Here are some names to get you started:

• lapicero
• bolígrafo
• pluma
• lapicera
• birome
• esfero

{Photo by: yoohoojuju}

Thanks for being a subscriber and reading our posts! We'd love to have you join the conversation on Facebook and get to know you on Twitter.

Related Posts

Will my children be as passionate about Spanish as I am? I sure hope so…

I know it’s crazy for me to even think about this right now considering my kids are only 5 and 2, but it’s something I often wonder.

In fact, I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, but then I got the February issue of Latina magazine which has an article titled Are we losing our Language? on the cover and I decided the time was now. Reading my friend Carrie’s post about it on the Tiki Tiki on Monday pushed me even more – mostly because of the comments she got there.

Although the poll in which she asks “How good is your Spanish” has clos to 60 percent of the people responding that it’s “perfectly fluent,” the comments tell another story. A story more representative of what the Latina article says the Pew Hispanic Center has fond:  ”only 38 percent of third-generation Latinos — United States-born kids with foreign-born grandparents — are proficient in Spanish, compared to 79 percent of the second generation.”

Clearly, the longer Latinos have been in this country, the less Spanish they speak. So how will this affect my grandchildren who will be third generation Latinos?

I’d like to think that it won’t and that they will be just as bilingual as I am. But who knows?

So far, raising my children bilingual has been fairly easy. I hope you don’t get mad at me for saying that, but if you read this blog often, you must know that both Ana and I speak Spanish fluently and we’re married to Latino men whose first language – just like us – is Spanish. In other words, speaking Spanish is completely natural for us and although it’s true that we sometimes forget how to say certain words – thank God for Spanglish! – we are still 100% fluent. So speaking to our children in Spanish is truly not something we have to work very hard at – at least not yet.

While I envision some sort of rebellion against their heritage language at some point in their adolescence, I truly don’t think they’ll forget their Spanish because I’m already ensuring that they’re surrounded by it at all times. I mean, not only at home, but by traveling to both Peru and Puerto Rico as often as possible, as we did with my stepson who today is a completely bilingual young man.

But I also don’t kid myself. The reality is that – and I’ve said this many times before – the way my kids are growing up bilingual is completely different than the way I did. 

I can only hope that I’m successful at showing them that speaking Spanish is a matter very close to my heart… the rest is completely up to them.

¿Y ustedes qué creen?

*{Image by: xavi talleda}

Thanks for being a subscriber and reading our posts! We'd love to have you join the conversation on Facebook and get to know you on Twitter.

Related Posts

Last week I shared with you that I was about to embark in an adventure of a lifetime with a group of bloggers and the women behind the Heart of Haiti and Fair Winds Trading. I am now here, in the heart of the Republic of Haiti, and I can attest that even though the heart is suffering, it is fiercely pulsating.

We’ve now spent two full days here and the best word to describe them is intense. Intensity in the amount of devastation and chaos there is still in the capital of Port-au-Prince. Intensity in the rhythm of life. Intensity in the passion of the people. Intensity in the loss and the dire living conditions of those hundreds of thousands still living in camps and who can’t really foresee a change in their situation happening anytime soon. Intensity in the resilience of spirit that is palpable in every single person I’ve met.

The single most important thing I’ve realized in the two days I’ve been here is that Haiti doesn’t want to be forgotten and they don’t want to be a charity case. Everyone we’ve met – from artisans in their village studios to women washing clothes in buckets next to a tent they now call home – have requested only one thing from us: the chance to work. Not a single person has asked or begged for money, something I had assumed would be happening everywhere since it’s a common scene in Latin American countries.

But Haitians know better. Like one woman told us today at a tent camp we were visiting and taking donations to: “Teach us how to fish so we can fish everyday.”

And that is exactly what the inspiring Willa Shalit, the founder of Fair Winds Trading and the force behind the Heart of Haiti initiative, is doing in Haiti-teaching them how to fish. The fish in this case are beautiful pieces of art which are being created by artisans who already had it in their heritage, but are now learning how to truly make their craft sustainable. With the support of donors and partners such as Macy’s and the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Willa Shalit and her passionate team are giving Haitians the opportunity they are asking for to take care of themselves through skills they already had and/or now have the willingness to learn.

In just two days I  have been given the chance to learn so much about giving and what we call charity. I have seen first hand that real giving comes in the form of sustainable creation. I’ve learned that we all have something to give beyond what is in the back of our closets or in our bank account. Yes, money is always needed, but it’s important to know where that money is going and how it’s being used. I want to place that money where it will directly impact the local economy and not add to the corruption.

I saw today the real power you and I have to give just by the choices we make when we purchase a gift. I saw men sitting outside at noon in the middle of the road  hammering away pieces of art created from oil containers. These hammered pieces were later cut out and polished inside a shack with no flooring or concrete walls to be sent out to be sold in places like Macy’s and Anthropologie. I now know the faces which will be feeding themselves and their families, as well as sending their kids to school, because they have work thanks to us deciding to buy these pieces. I finally truly understand.

I am just so grateful to have this opportunity right now to learn that even through the most severe and dramatic devastations, life goes on and we must join the spirit of Haitian life and continue to help them rebuild because the real work has only begun.

I have so much to share and will in the following weeks bring you all much more information and stories about the places we’ve been to and the people we’ve met and bonded with.

Thank you for allowing me to this share this with you.

Check out the slideshow for some pictures of what we’ve seen.

Thanks for being a subscriber and reading our posts! We'd love to have you join the conversation on Facebook and get to know you on Twitter.

Related Posts

A Trip To Haiti With Heart of Haiti

Two years ago today we stood still as we witnessed from afar the Read more ...

Just in time for MLK day and following the Fall 2011 release of the new children’s book, Chocolate Me, I had the opportunity to participate in a bloggers’ panel with actor and author Taye Diggs. Diggs, along with childhood friend Shane Evans, created this autobiographical story about a black boy who feels out of place in a class full of white children. He is preoccupied with his looks until his mother reassures him by telling him that he has “cotton candy hair” and “skin like velvet fudge frosting.”

At SpanglishBaby, we discuss linguistic difference and the beauty of cultural mixing often, but sometimes we forget to discuss how race plays a part in the way that our culturally enlightened niños interact with their peers. Because Latinos can be members of various races, it is important to share stories like Chocolate Me with our kids, whether they will have to confront racial identity issues themselves or simply be understanding of others who must do so.

I asked Taye how the lessons his book teaches apply to diversity unrelated to race, such as linguistic and cultural diversity. Here is his answer:

“…I think it goes back to the strength that we need to have as a family unit at home and to just provide as much of a positive perspective, including all of the races and cultures that your child possesses, so that when it comes to that point when he or she is  kind of forced to make a decision, the child either doesn’t and just says ‘I’m including all of this,’ or depending on however he’s been guided, can make a choice.”

I then shared with him that I am conscious of the fact that I overcompensate with my son’s minority language and culture, though it is not my native background. In other words, I flood my son with Spanish books and music, and Caribbean food, yet never emphasize his whiteness. I was encouraged by his response:

“…when we were coming up, my mother went overboard with the blackness because she figured anything white I would get as soon as I left my door. Depending on your neighborhood and where you grew up, but the United States, just as far as what we see in the media is still predominantly white and male outside of sports and music. So with me personally, I’m alright with going overboard on the emphasis as long as you’re not discouraging of any other races, because I just think the more positive the better. No one is ever going to have an issue finding a white role model, ever. Not for a while. So I’m all cool with pumping up the positivity of ethnic diversity.”

Martin Luther King Day 2012 has passed, but as we all know, maintaining the balance between inclusion and exclusion is a year-round, lifelong crusade. Having books like Chocolate Me, and resources like the corresponding website and Facebook page, gives us daily support as parents raising children in a country that is still (unfortunately) focused on white culture.

For daily inspiration on parenting and multicultural living, follow @TayeDiggs and @ChocolateMe on Twitter.

Thanks for being a subscriber and reading our posts! We'd love to have you join the conversation on Facebook and get to know you on Twitter.