Daily Blog

“You are obsessed,” my husband tells me a couple of nights ago as I’m frantically (and futilely) looking for a Spanish-speaking (or bilingual) clown on the internet for Vanessa’s 5th birthday party this summer. He think it’s crazy I’m doing this because, in his view, who cares what language the clown speaks? “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I respond. But then, I start to really think about it. Am I obsessed? Sure I am. I’ll be dammed ifRead More ...

Lately, I have taken frequent note of the hypocrisy surrounding Spanish speaking in America. While many monolingual (English-speaking) Americans feign support for Latino culture, they back up when it comes too close. The message I hear is: Go ahead and teach your kids Spanish, but speak English around me because I don’t want it to take over my world. This is why many parents enroll their children in Spanish classes or expose them to Spanish baby books but fall shortRead More ...

The story of my mom is not that of a single mom who sacrificed everything to make sure I had a better life. Or of an immigrant mom who came to this country not knowing a word of English and raised three successful professionals by working two jobs. Neither is it the story of a mom who slaved in the kitchen to ensure we had the most comforting home-cooked meals to cure all our ailments. No, the story of myRead More ...

There are so many wonderful reasons why I love being a mom to a bilingual and bicultural child. And beyond the long-term benefits that it will have for my son as he navigates through life, I keep coming back to a nostalgic feeling of keeping a connection between my son and my home country of Venezuela. I was born in Caracas and we moved to the Unites States in 1980 when I was just 6-years-old. According to my mother, IRead More ...

As someone who was raised by a single mother, Mother’s Day has an extra special significance to me.  Not only because we celebrated it twice in my home. Dominican’s Mother’s Day is on the last Sunday of the month. To me Mother’s Day signifies something bigger — the daily struggles, endurance, determination and influence of a woman who came to this country for a better life. My mother promised to make certain my brother and I had a better life than the one she had growingRead More ...

As a first generation Latina it is of the utmost importance for me that my children learn to speak and write proper Spanish. Much more than that, I find myself lecturing my closest friends and family — also first generation — when I hear they don’t speak Spanish to their children. The answer I often get from these parents is that it is effortless to talk to them in English because they are learning the language in school and theyRead More ...

Before our baby was born, my husband and I had a silent agreement, “We’d raise a multilingual child.”  I won’t deny, I was worried, would this delay her speech? I often wondered if she’d be confused by hearing all three languages spoken at once. Friends said babies were like sponges, they absorb everything, so my worrying went away, well, decreased.  And so our daughter was born and we began speaking all three languages.  My husband’s native language is Croatian, mine isRead More ...

Having kids is a lot of work, as a mom of a 2-year-old, I’ll be the first to admit that it makes me a little crazy at times. There are so many situations to handle, so many decisions to make, so many daily tasks and hardly ever a break. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and then, being a bicultural mom, go ahead and pile language and cultural lessons right on top of that list. Sheesh! How do we do itRead More ...