Must Reads

One week. That’s how long we’ve been here already. We’ve done so much, yet it feels like such a short time. Our trip back to my home is almost over. When I mentioned that I wasn’t sure how to start this post my husband promptly responded “with the food!” Because, yes, we’ve been eating like there is no tomorrow. Peruvian food is one of the things I miss the most and so we’ve been doing a lot of eating. MostRead More ...

In the past couple of weeks there have been two studies released related to Latina mamás which have been of particular interest to us here at SpanglishBaby for the insights they’ve revealed related to how ingrained our culture is in our daily lives regardless of our acculturation level. Just this past Monday, BabyCenter released The Hispanic Moms Acculturation Study, which is part of their larger 21st Century Mom Insight Series. The study interviewed 2,479 Hispanic moms — from recent immigrants toRead More ...

I finally filled out and turned in all the registration forms required for my daughter to enter Kindergarten this fall. After getting over the fact that she’s about to reach this humongous milestone, I also had to come to terms with the fact that she won’t be going to a dual language school — at least not for now. I can’t lie. It was an extremely difficult decision to make, but at this time in our lives, I’m confident it’sRead More ...

A couple of days ago, I overheard my daughter speaking in English while she was playing by herself with her My Little Pony collection. I made it a point to observe her a bit more intently – without her knowledge, of course – just to make sure she wasn’t just saying a few words in English, as she’s done in the past. I don’t know why it surprised me, but the whole time the ponies were speaking English to eachRead More ...

Last week I was pretty taken aback when I heard someone say that “el Spanglish es una aberración” (literally an aberration, an outrage). The craziest thing is that this person — an old colleague and friend of my husband’s who is Argentinian, but has lived in Miami for a long time —  said this as he admitted to using it himself! Then I realized I got exactly what he meant because I used to be one of them: the anti-Spanglish,Read More ...

As I typed out the title of this posting I could not help but form a smirk on my face. Here’s the deal. The further I delve into the work of identity construction in my doctoral program, the more I realize that individuals take on multiple identities depending on the context they are in, including several other elements that come into play. Even in the previous sentence I wrote there are several words I would have to define to explainRead More ...

Last week, Chelsea Kyle shared on our Facebook page an excellent opinion piece by New York Times columnist, Nicholas D. Kristof, titled Primero Hay Que Aprender Español. Ranhou Zai Xue Zhongwen (First learn Spanish. Then study Chinese.) The point he cleverly, and even bravely, makes is that even though Chinese is growing in popularity as the language of choice for parents who want to give their children an educational advantage, Spanish is the language every child in the United StatesRead More ...

Happy New Year to all of you! We hope 2011 bring you lots of happiness, peace, love and success! As 2010 comes to an end, both Ana Lilian and I want to thank you for all your support, inquiries, comments and contributions because without it SpanglishBaby would not be what it is today. This has been a year full of awesomeness for SpanglishBaby. For starters, we celebrated our first anniversary with a major redesign which — after a few minorRead More ...