Traditions + Culture

We were finally able to spend a Christmas with family in Mexico after three years of quiet holidays as a family of three in Los Angeles.  Travel is one of the most significant and effective ways to immerse your child in a language and culture.  Aside from the obvious benefits for our girl’s bilingual development, travel to Latin America for us is a matter of connection to the essence of who we are and to the heart of our heritage. Read More ...

Mexico has been very present in my life lately.  From the continuous buzz regarding the Bicentennial and tomorrow’s Centennial celebrations, to next week’s environmental COP16 summit in Cancún, to the planning of our family trip to spend la Navidad with my husband’s Mexican family. We haven’t celebrated the holiday season with family at all since Camila was born three years ago. So, this trip will be special in many ways.  In an odd way, even though I was raised inRead More ...

Our cat died not too long ago.  My children had both been fond of her, and were very aware of her absence.  My two and a half year old had a lot of questions for me as to where our pet had gone, and I found myself addressing the topic of death with him.  Of course I adapted my explanation for his age and maturity level, explaining that our cat, Amiga was in heaven and that she was happy thereRead More ...

Editor´s Note:  Today we kick off a very special week in celebration of two festivities that define our biculturalism:  Halloween and Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead.)  Throughout the week we will feature guest posts and videos that will add color, spice and vida to Día de Muertos Week on SpanglishBaby.  So, make sure you are subscribed to our feed so you don’t miss a beat! Today´s post, written by Verónica Gonzalez Smith, is an introduction to howRead More ...

The weather is chilly, pumpkins sit on front porches and fires are lit up in chimneys. Fall is officially here, and with it the holiday season of excess kicks off with Halloween and, for some of us Latinos, Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).  Nutrition is always a huge topic around the holidays and more so around Halloween because of the insane amount of candy our kids are exposed to. Now, we know we can´t stop our kidsRead More ...

The following is a guest post by Rubén González, who blogs at “Love, Translated – Raising Bilingual, Bicultural Children” If you were a teenager in the United States in 1991, you were likely to either have the hots for Kelly Taylor or for Dylan McKay (or maybe Brandon Walsh, if you preferred goody-two-shoes). But more interestingly, if you were a teenager in Colombia in 1991 (namely, me,) from that great distance and thanks to the magic of television, you knewRead More ...

  In honor of my daughter, Vanessa, who turns 4 years today, I’m re-posting this article from July 16, 2009, so I can spend the day having fun with my bilingual child. ¡Feliz Cumpleaños, hija linda! I absolutely love summer…for a lot of reasons, but mainly because my daughter is a summer baby which means we get to celebrate her cumpleaños outdoors in the melting heat (as opposed to indoors hiding from the snow.) In fact, both Vanessa and CamilaRead 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 ...