Daily Blog

From September to June, we’re all about structure around here.  My boys have been in preschool since they were two.  We have home visits from teachers once a week, there’s a never-ending flurry of notes back and forth in communication logs, we have speech therapy and appointments with the psychiatrist.  So it’s no wonder that once June hits, I’m ready for all of us to take it a little easier.  I take on less work, or more work that IRead More ...

It’s been a while since the last time we took a look at the media buzz regarding bilingualism. In the past, we’ve let you know our reaction to newspaper articles, blog posts or videos related to bilingual education, Latino culture and the Spanish language. Now, we constantly share them on our Facebook page and strike up a conversation there. But what was in the news last week deserves a more in-depth look. The Los Angeles Times, printed three op-ed articlesRead More ...

I’ve been thinking about two things lately: my daughter’s name and her linguistic environment.  When we named her Marisol, we intentionally chose a Spanish name, including that rolled “r.”  We knew it would be butchered often, but loved it anyway and it became her name.  Her middle and last names are also very clearly Latino names as well.  Throughout our days, though, I wonder if her name will make her feel out of place, or self-conscious because it is soRead More ...

Editor´s note:  The following is a guest post and vlog by Carrie Ferguson Weir. My girl’s first words were in Spanish. And, I was so proud. Here I was in Tennessee, with no Spanish-speaking relatives nearby and my little baby was hablando español. And then she turned 3 y “I don’t speak Spanish!’’ became her battle cry. (This, despite attending a Spanish immersion pre-school.) Maria is nearly 7 now and she understands everything I say in Spanish, her accent isRead More ...

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on this blog in November 2009. I was recently talking to somebody of Hispanic descent who wasn’t taught Spanish at home, but learned it later on in life. She vowed she wouldn’t follow her parents’ footsteps, but ended up doing exactly the same thing with her kids who are now elementary school-aged. “And, now it’s too late!” she lamented. I immediately reassured her that it’s never too late – that’s just a common myth.Read More ...

I never thought it would happen to me, but it did.  The societal pressure to put my children on the achievement treadmill started to influence some of my parenting decisions.  All parents want to give their children experiences to help them grow into successful adults, but sometimes we go overboard.  Children today often have schedules crammed full of sports’ practices, dances classes, education enrichment programs, art classes and even programs teaching them reading and math.  Like any good parent, IRead More ...

The other night, my husband and I were having a pretty “heated” discussion about the right Spanish word for earring. Pretty lame, huh? But I’ve always had a fascination with words – it’s not for nothing that I chose journalism as a career path – in both English and Spanish. Anyhow, for my husband, who hails from Puerto Rico, an earring is una pantalla. To me, una pantalla means a screen or lampshade. So there we were right before bedtimeRead More ...

I have always been somewhat anal about language – grammar and the like. I think if someone had told me when I was a kid (before I became bilingual) that the nouns I used were interchangeable with others that I had never heard before, I would’ve been…well, perturbed. This is why I am completely floored by my son’s ability to latch onto 2, 3, 4, or more nouns for every thing in his world. Isaiah doesn’t just move fluidly betweenRead More ...