Must Reads

Where to Start? We’re celebrating our first anniversary this week with lots of new features and awesome giveaways. We know many of you have been following us from the beginning—and for that, we are extremely grateful—but for some, SpanglishBaby is a recent discovery. Regardless of which category best describes you, it’s never a bad idea to get a refresher on some of the great content we’ve covered since inception—after all, it has been a whole 12 months! If you’re brandRead More ...

February is well known for carnivals, so it seems pretty fitting that we’re hosting the monthly Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism started last year by Letizia from Bilingual for Fun. We’ve grown to really love this idea mostly because we’ve connected with a lot of bloggers from all over the world trying to do the same thing we all are: raising bilingual/multilingual children! This month we’re happy to welcome back the usual suspects, but we’d also like to introduce you toRead More ...

My husband was prepping for a presentation for one of the classes he takes at the local university when I happened to ask him how he felt about speaking in front of a group of people. He said it had gotten much easier with time, but that it would be even easier if he didn’t have to do it in English. That was surprising! I’ve always considered him just as bilingual and biliterate as I am. Both of us attendedRead More ...

Just when you think things are getting better, you find out outrageous news like this one: a bilingual secretary in a public elementary school in North Carolina has sued the school district claiming she was fired for speaking Spanish to students’ parents. According to the article in the Charlotte Observer, the lawsuit states that in 2006, Ana Ligia Mateo was hired as a bilingual secretary for a school with a student body that’s 42 percent Hispanic. Everything was fine untilRead More ...

Valentine´s Day is the day to tell our friends and family how much they are loved.  We are always full of love for this community of parents raising bilingual children and for the love and support you always show us. In Spanish-speaking countries,Valentine´s Day is called either El Día de San  Valentín or El Día del  Amor y la Amistad. This week´s video is from one of the favorite characters in our household:  Caillou, learning about El  Día de  SanRead More ...

Just wanted to share with you the winners of 2010′s Pura Belpré Award. Established back in 1996, the award goes to “a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.” Author Award winner: Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez – A YA (young adults) novel about the friendship between two children from different backgrounds, one an American citizen, the other one an undocumentedRead More ...

Playgroups, I can’t praise them enough. Not only has ours been a great way to expose Vanessa to Spanish spoken by her peers, but it’s also become like a second family for me. I’ve become really good friends with some of the other mamás and we rely on each other for anything from babysitting to accountant recommendations. And, just the other day, it was through one of the mothers, actually through the founder of our group, that I found outRead More ...

I don’t know why, but lately I’ve been bombarded by information related to the loss of heritage languages in this country. It probably has to do with the fact that I’m currently working on a newspaper story about how some second–or even third–generation immigrants who were not taught Spanish by their parents are choosing to do the opposite with their children. I recently found out my husband works with somebody who was born in Mexico, but moved to Colorado whenRead More ...