Kimberly Lane

I was five years old when I visited Costa Rica the first time, and seven years old when we visited again.  Although my mother spoke to me in Spanish, I was around a lot of her Spanish-speaking friends and their children and I was even in a bilingual classroom in school, there was nothing quite like those trips.  Even though I was a child, I still remember what it felt like, coming to the swift realization that there was moreRead More ...

From September to June, we’re all about structure around here.  My boys have been in preschool since they were two.  We have home visits from teachers once a week, there’s a never-ending flurry of notes back and forth in communication logs, we have speech therapy and appointments with the psychiatrist.  So it’s no wonder that once June hits, I’m ready for all of us to take it a little easier.  I take on less work, or more work that IRead More ...

I have what could be considered a textbook American family on my dad’s side of the family:  one aunt and uncle, two cousins, a few great-aunts, great-uncles, and other more distant relatives I’ve gotten to know to one degree or another.  On my mother’s side:  seven aunts and uncles, more cousins than I can count, and I couldn’t keep track of my extended family without a seriously detailed family tree. People have tried to convince me that in Latin America,Read More ...

As the parent who speaks the minority language to my children at home, it’s occasionally tempting to dwell on the fact that it can be hard.  After all, the task of keeping the Spanish going at home falls squarely on my shoulders, right?  I’m the one who has to be so disciplined and intentional (my new favorite buzzword) when doing something as simple as speaking with my children, all the time.  The pressure, I realize, is self imposed, but itRead More ...

Due to both my location (the wonderfully diverse Washington, D.C. area) and my occupation (Spanish interpreter), I have many friends who are also raising bilingual children. They are my support group, and when we get together the conversation invariably turns to our children’s bilingualism, our experiences and challenges. I was chatting with one such friend and we started discussing the deluge of English in schools, how it will be hard to keep the Spanish going at home, how we’ll haveRead More ...