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We are thrilled to be introducing you to our five regular contributors. As we mentioned on Monday, each one brings a different perspective on raising bilingual and bicultural children. We have already introduced Chelsea, a single mom who’s raising her son bilingual (English/Spanish) even when Spanish is not her native language. On Tuesday, you met Susan, a mother of two who is raising her son trilingual (English/Spanish/German) and has tons of ideas on how to do it.

Today, we’d like you to welcome Elsie who is hoping her daughter – whom she is raising bilingual and multicultural – will one day identify as Latina. Bienvenida to our family!

Elsie Rivas Gomez is a mother, wife, teacher, and writer living in Pasadena, CA.  She was born in El Salvador and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Her first collection of poetry, Swimming in El Rio Sumpul, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. You can find her blogging over at MamaFeminista

Lengua Torcida: Mothering in Broken Spanish

I have been called a “coconut,” and while I didn’t like it, it wasn’t entirely untrue. I was born in El Salvador in 1979, and immigrated to California with my family in 1980. I then proceeded to have a very typical Californian childhood, filled with sunshine, bad television, and English. Sure, at home my Abuelita and Papi spoke to me en español, but my mom, who spent her days working as a secretary, and siblings (all five of them) mostly spoke to me in English. I grew up eating platanos y pupusas, but also hamburgers and fries. By middle school, Spanish was my language of last resort.

Like so many Latinos, I want to give my daughter the gift of Spanish, so that she may communicate, love, and dream in Spanish. I want the doors of linguistic opportunity and imagination to be wide open for her, and for a couple of very assimilated parents, this a challenging adventure.

In my daughter’s mind, we have a “doggie,” drink “agua,” give “besitos” and when her daddy says “love you,” she replies “amo.” Culturally, we are kind of a mess around here, but it’s a good mess: My daughter is half Salvadoreña, a quarter Mexican, and a quarter Anglo, with a bit of Native American in there somewhere. I hope that she will identify as Latina, like I do, but my own mother identifies as Salvadoreña, and wanted me to do the same. Even though she is mine, she is also her own and the identity she chooses for herself will ultimately be up to her. Perhaps it’s unrealistic of me to expect her to identify as Latina, when I am raising her in a very multicultural community, whose major influences, at least among our close friends, is not predominantly Latino.

We do have large families, and they are rich sources of Spanish and Latino culture, but most of our relatives live hours, or days away. We are in rooms filled with Spanish sounds only occasionally. Our friends and closest relatives, are Colombian and Salvadoran, but also Korean, Black, Anglo, Armenian, etc. Los Angeles is a treasure trove of Latino cultural events, art exhibits, and Latino community. However, at many of these events and exhibits, what we hear most is English! And while we do patronize our local pupuseria, we don’t live in Latino neighborhoods with Spanish-filled streets. Los Angeles is a wonderful mix of all cultures, and while the majority is Latino, in downtown, and in most of the suburbs, what you’ll find there is that mix—of all races. Yes, there are pockets of Los Angeles where all you hear is Spanish, but we don’t live there, and a visit doesn’t constitute a way of life.

So we try our best, which is not very good, to be honest. While I may technically be “fluent,” as my husband likes announce, I am not versatile, easy, or natural in Spanish. My vocabulary is limited to domestic situations, which are okay for now—our days are still spent playing with toys and learning the basic words and names for things. But I wouldn’t be able to explain to our mechanic a problem with our car, or communicate about health or science, because I just don’t have the vocabulary. Sure, if I think about it, look it up, or call my mom, I get it pretty quickly, but I am far more competent in English. My husband speaks maybe just enough Spanish to get through a basic situation, but can’t really have a conversation, so it’s on me.

I speak to her in my flawed Spanish; I catch myself mispronouncing words, speaking in Spanglish, instead of “real” Spanish, and just hope that this will have some of the intended benefit. I keep trying because even though my language is flawed I have those sounds inside me. I can roll my r’s, engage in conversation with other Spanish speakers, and I can sing as well as dance to Spanish music. I want these to be sounds that she finds comforting and welcoming, not alien or strange.

I am an imperfect teacher of Latinidad and español, but perhaps my intentions will make up for my ability. I will keep speaking my broken spanish, watching telenovelas, and reading in Spanish to try and fill the gaps in my tongue, and I will keep saying the most important words I know–“te amo”–in Spanish.

It’s possible that these issues of language and culture will matter very little to her, that her culture will simply be American, including bits of many cultures. Even at one and a half, she already likes sushi as much as burritos; she’s indifferent to pupusas, but loves bool kogi; and will dance to any music with a good beat. I hope that she will grow up feeling proud of her roots, and that I will understand when she chooses to branch out in directions I might not have expected.

We are so excited to be welcoming all our five contributors and can’t wait to keep sharing their regular posts with you! We have so many new things planned for this second year…one of the biggest ones is our new look which we will reveal muy pronto!

“Does it hurt the child’s development to emphasize more than one language? I am bilingual in both Chinese and English and my husband only speaks English. My baby goes to a daycare that speaks Chinese to him. However, since we live in CA, I wanted to expose the baby to Spanish as well, which I am proficient in but no expert. We read Spanish story books as well as Chinese ones and I speak Chinese to him when I am alone with him (since my husband only understands and speaks a little Chinese, I was worried it wasn’t fair to him to speak it all the time around the house when he’s there). We also occasionally read other language picture books for fun – like French even though I can’t be sure of the pronunciation. Is being too exposed to multiple languages weakening his grasp of Chinese? I’m not worried about English since he’ll get that at school and around our friends since everyone but my family and at daycare speaks English.”

Dear Leslie,

It’s fantastic that you are exposing your child to such a variety of languages.

In the first year of life children are learning to differentiate the sounds of language.  The earlier a child is exposed to a language, the easier it is for him to differentiate and produce the sounds of that language.  This is the same reason that adult second language learners have difficulty sounding like native speakers of their second language, even if their vocabulary and syntax are perfect.

And speaking of vocabulary and syntax, you might see that your child picks up some words in Chinese, some in English, and maybe others in Spanish but does not know the word for one thing in both or all of his languages.  It is common that 70% of the words a bilingual toddler uses are unique to one language or the other while only 30% are words used in both languages.

It is also common to see the child use the syntax, or structure, of one language in the other.  For example, Spanish word order requires a noun followed by an adjective (el zapato azul/the shoe blue), whereas English word order requires the adjective first (the blue shoe).  It is very normal for children to use rules from language when producing another when they are in the learning process.  This does not mean they have a delay or that they are confused—just that they are learning.

Keep up the multi-language immersion!

Sincerely,

Ellen Kester, Ph.D. CCC-SLP
Bilinguistics

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She earned her Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology and her Bachelor’s degree in Spanish at The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.” You can read her answers here.

As always, feel free to leave your thoughts or advice about this in the comments below. You can also leave your own question for the Experts here.

We invite you to visit our new sister site, SpanglishBabyFinds, where we review the coolest products made with Latino and/or bilingual kids in mind. There’s a giveaway every week!

Photo by dariuszka

The weekly series Ask an Expert has turned out to be one of the most popular categories in SpanglishBaby.  We’re still humbled and in awe of the amazing panel of professional bilingual experts we’ve managed to put together to answer your questions once a week.

We invite you to click on the Ask an Expert tab in the navigation menu to meet the panel, to learn more about their area of expertise and to send us your question.

Today’s question is answered by Barbara Pearson, Ph. D., author of the informative and extremely useful book Raising a Bilingual Child.

This is the book that got Roxana and me started and we highly recommend to you, as we stated in this post: Top 10 Books For Parents Raising Bilingual Children.

We Moved to a Foreign Country and my Son Stopped Speaking Spanish

This question was sent by Christine McCollum, a native US mom who now lives in Turkey with her husband and son.

“I have a 5 year old son who was raised speaking Spanish. Both his father and myself spoke only Spanish to him and he began speaking in Spanish. We are not native speakers and we raised him in Utah. Almost two years ago we moved to Turkey. After three months here I stopped speaking Spanish to him because I realized he had no way to keep up on his English. He didn’t have the friends, family, TV, and basically everyone on the street to teach him English anymore. My husband has continued to speak Spanish to him but instead of responding in Spanish like before, he now responds in English and will rarely speak Spanish unless we beg him to repeat something. I would really like to get him to start speaking Spanish again with his father. How can we do this without making him feel too much pressure?”

Dear Christine,

It sounds like your family made a good start on Spanish, and then hit a big bump in the road when you went to Turkey. Learning three languages at a time is very possible for children, but your circumstances there are not the best for that purpose. It might be time to change your expectations for your child’s Spanish for the time being.  But don’t give up on it.  In your situation (and any situation), I would not pressure the child, but I wouldn’t give up my own love affair with Spanish.

I think your husband’s language task in Turkey is to keep Spanish alive for your family, so when your situation (or location) changes, you will still have a base to build on.

Your son is telling you that he doesn’t feel the need or the desire for Spanish. It was important to him back home when he needed Spanish to talk with the people he loves most in the world—you and your husband.  But now, that’s no longer necessary. (You don’t say what you two speak with each other, but I suppose it’s not Spanish.)

My advice is for your husband to continue speaking in Spanish. He should make it clear that he prefers to speak in Spanish even if your son does not.  In my book, I give a spectrum of responses (from Elizabeth Lanza) for how to respond when the child doesn’t speak to you in the language you want him to use. I would concentrate on the middle of the spectrum.  That is, your husband can repeat the child’s turn in Spanish before responding.  But it’s cumbersome to do that on every turn.  Sometimes he’ll just want to respond in Spanish and go on, taking extra care to help the child understand him (without translating into English).

Given your isolation from Spanish, it may be hard for your husband to keep up his fluency in the language.  He may need to find some native speakers for conversation even if it’s on the internet.  To make Spanish less abstract for himself, your husband might enlist a puppet. Do you remember the Tom Hanks movie where he makes a companion out of a deflated volleyball whom he calls Wilson.  To keep his sanity on a desert island, Hanks spends a lot of time talking to Wilson.  Your husband might find a puppet (or his own volleyball to be his Spanish sounding board).  Your son may even be willing to talk to a puppet whom he perceives as speaking only Spanish.

Use this time abroad to build your son’s awareness of how special it is to be able to speak Spanish.  You could set aside a Spanish time every week when you join your husband in speaking Spanish.  For this special time, make special foods your child likes and do activities that he likes in Spanish.  Do songs or movement dances together—or karaoke.  Maybe have a few special things you do only in Spanish.

You’re “selling” Spanish, but using the soft sell, not the hard sell.  Eventually, your son may chime in, but even if he doesn’t, it’s important for him to see you enjoying yourselves while speaking the language. Given how well you did in Utah, I think you really will enjoy it.

Then when circumstances change again, you re-assess.

Keep us posted on your progress.

Best wishes,

Barbara

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