In many ways I feel the same way as Roxana when she wrote, in an earlier post, My Daughter is Bilingual Thanks To Her Teachers, about the important role teachers have played in developing my daughters bilingualism. For the past six months my nena has been hearing English for the majority of her day. I can attest that she is an example of how children acquire language at what seems like a pretty fast pace compared to older children and/or adults, and for my daughter it has all been thanks to her amazing teachers.

That being said, my husband and I continue to speak to her in Spanish 100% of the time, and she continues to do the same when speaking to us. The few times we have heard her speak in English have always surprised us because we really aren’t aware of how much she actually knows.

One of my tactics in raising her with Spanish has been to never translate for her. In other words, if a stranger or friend speaks to her in English I simply prompt her (in Spanish) to respond. As a result, she now translates when I prompt her to respond. For example, recently we went to the pediatrician’s office for her yearly check up and the following conversation emerged:

Doctor: Hi, Sabrina.

Sabrina: Hi, that’s my mommy (pointing to me).

Me: Sabrina, cuéntale a la doctora de tu owie

Sabrina: I have owie. I no like it.

There have been other instances, like the one above, that have completely tickled us because she also seems to have acquired a Spanish accent when she speaks English, which we LOVE. My next move is to help her realize that some people are bilingual and that she can use her Spanish with them.

Unfortunately, and as I expected, if the bilingual adults in her life use Spanish and English with her she pegs them as English speakers. This is simply another indication of the power English has in our society. That is to say, my daughter has picked up on the language with the highest status, which was also something I expected to happen. When I reflect on how she has developed her linguistic skills I feel confident that other parents like myself, second generation immigrants, can do the same!

Statistics indicate that the third generation (like my daughter) is more likely to not speak their family’s native language, which in our case is Spanish. Have you, as a second generation immigrant (parents are from another country, but you were born in the U.S.), managed to raise a bilingual child? If so, what are some of the strategies you have used to develop child’s bilingualism?

{Photo by  UNC – CFC – USFK }

Four Generations: my daughter + mi abuelita

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 when he was a child and–as it happened with many children not too long ago–was virtually punished in school if he spoke Spanish. The result: he ended up having to re-learn it when he went to college.

During a recent interview I conducted with the head of a full immersion school, which will open its door in Denver in August, I was surprised to find out that many first-generation parents were genuinely not interested in such a program because their biggest desire was for their children to learn English–not Spanish–so they could have the kind of success that eludes them due to their lack of English skills.

Finally, just this weekend, I came across an online discussion, in a Facebook group I belong to called Wise Latinas Linked, that dealt with this exact subject matter. The member who started the thread said, “My parents were among the generation that was whipped for speaking Spanish in school, and as a result, my grandparents stopped speaking in Spanish to them so they could learn English better.” As a result, she was not taught Spanish and is now having a very hard time trying to learn it in college.

Apparently, she’s not alone. As the head of the immersion school explained, research suggests that Spanish is all but dead in the third generation. This is how she explained it to me: first generation immigrants usually learn enough English to survive, but conduct themselves mostly in Spanish in their daily lives. Their children–or the second generation–(whether they were born here or came when they were young) maintain their Spanish (mostly spoken only), but conduct themselves mainly in English in their daily lives. Their grandchildren–or the third generation–speak only English. (By the way, this is also true of heritage languages other than Spanish.)

I know that speaking Spanish is not the only way to define Latinos, but it can’t be denied that it’s very tightly connected to our culture. Furthermore, although not entirely impossible, it does become very difficult to choose to raise your children bilingual if you weren’t raised that way. I guess, it just wouldn’t feel natural.

I’ve been truly flabbergasted by all this information. More than anything, I have been very saddened by it. My kids are still so young, I have no way of knowing what’s going to end up happening with them when they become adults. I can only hope I can instill in them enough pride for their heritage that they choose to gift their own children by raising them bilingual and bi-cultural, too!