Traditions + Culture

My mom just got back from a month-long trip to Perú, our homeland, and as soon as she landed, I wanted to know when she’d be over. Not only did I miss her and wanted for her to see her nietos (especially since my baby boy, Santiago, has changed so much in the past few weeks), but also because I knew she was coming back with a suitcase full of awesome goodies from back home. As soon as my momRead More ...

As soon as the plane landed in Miami last Wednesday, I called my niece who was waiting for us at the airport and asked if she could takes us directly to Pollo Tropical so I could get my fix of Caribbean fast food. She thought I was kidding because, as they say, you don’t know what you have until you lose it. But I wasn’t. When my husband and I left Miami for the Rocky Mountains four years ago, weRead More ...

Editor’s note:  Mother’s Day is this Sunday and we decided to celebrate a las madres de las madres–las abuelitas.  This week we have two posts focusing on grandmothers as providers of cultural identity and a link to our heritage language. Today’s post is by Dominican/American mother of four, Angélica Perez-Litwin, who just launched Modern Familia-an amazing multicultural blog dedicated to cultivating confident and happy families. We invite you to visit our amiga´s site where we can almost guarantee you´ll feelRead More ...

As I was rummaging through some baby toys and books getting them ready for Santiago, who just turned five months and is so much more interested in all kinds of things, I came across a CD of lullabies that I received as a gift from one of my mother’s sisters in Mexico. I immediately remembered how lucky my kids are to have family in South Latin America that can help them appreciate their culture even more through amazing examples. TheRead More ...

Photo by AndrewEick This post was originally published on July 16, 2009. 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 Camila were born pretty much in the middle of the summer, so both Ana and I will be celebrating their birthdays pretty soon. This gotRead More ...

The following is a guest post by Marcela Hede and is part of the Your Bicultural Holiday Traditions series. We love Las Navidades! Typically we celebrate the best of both worlds-the American and the Hispanic one.  I try to introduce our Colombian traditions in a fun way for our son Ian to have great memories of them. At home we place a lot of emphasis on three things that help us celebrate Hispanic style. 1.  Building the pesebre or nativityRead More ...

The following is a guest post by Silvia and is part of the Your Bicultural Holiday Traditions series. In a perfect world we would spend every year in Mexico during the Christmas Season. I have wonderful memories of getting together each year at my abuelita’s house, of playing with my cousins, enjoying the posadas, drinking the ponche, smacking the piñatas, praying, rocking baby Jesus, hugging everybody, eating after midnight, and coming back the next day for leftovers. Unfortunately, we haven’tRead More ...

The following is a guest post by Dariela and is part of the Your Bicultural Holiday Traditions series. This year I have a list of traditions and activities I want to make that will help bring together the two cultures we have in our family: Venezuelan and American. Since our son is 3 years old and we have a girl on the way, it is already proving to be fun to start these traditions through the holidays: Christmas Books inRead More ...