Photo by JAG Photography

I recently read something which left me livid. I posted the link on Sunday as part of our weekly Yo Quiero Links and promised I would write about it, so here we are. To truly understand what I’m talking about, however;  I think you need to read it yourself.

Here’s a recap, just in case… Published last week, “A Child of Two Worlds,” is  a guest post on The New York Times‘ blog, Motherload: Adventures in Parenting. In it, the author claims she worries about how detrimental it could be for her biracial (American mother/Colombian father) child to be considered more Latina than White.

Before I even get into the heart of the matter, the fact that the author describes her daughter as biracial speaks volumes about her incomprehension – to put it lightly – of this topic. Hispanic/Latino is NOT a race, but an ethnicity, so unless her husband is Black, Asian or American Indian – which she does not divulge in her post – her child is not biracial. There are many Latinos who are as white as white can be, believe me, I know, my mother is one of them. Blond hair, blue eyes, light skin. She usually gets asked if she is German, but she is 100% Peruvian.

I have read and re-read the article in question including the more than 300 comments it has elicited and before I go any further, I need to clarify that the fact that the author is praised for a “well-written” and “honest” piece is ABSOLUTELY besides the point. These compliments are the equivalent of ignoring the elephant in the living room. The author’s blatantly racist comments are so obvious, it is unbelievable to me that people would actually ignore them by saying how “brave” and “honest” she is for coming out and saying these things. Can we please just concentrate on what she is saying and not how she is saying it?

Many of the comments on this article were appalling. Let’s start with this one:

“Yeah, my kid was of two cultures, and, yes, she would learn Spanish and English, but to emphasize her Latina side, I felt, was somehow a disservice.”

How people get away with saying stuff like this, I don’t understand. How and why The New York Times would actually publish such a racist and ignorant piece is beyond my comprehension. As much as I believe in and support the First Amendment, as any respectable journalist would, I can not for the life of me see the point in publishing such a ridiculous and unfounded tirade.

The definition of disservice is: a harmful action. How can teaching her daughter about her Latina side be harmful to her? And if she truly believes this, then I guess she did a great disservice to herself by marrying a Latino. It is because of people with these type of limited views that racism and prejudice endure and propagate.

Here’s more: “Yes, I wanted her to be bilingual, but I didn’t want Spanish to be the language she identified with most.”

Again, what is the problem with Spanish? Might be the author’s way of covering her own insecurities as a monolingual American? I guess it would behoove the author to visit SpanglishBaby so she could see for herself the amazing benefits of raising a bilingual child and what a true disservice it is not to do so given her family’s dynamic.

Towards the end of the article, she says: “If Latinos ruled the world, maybe I’d push things to go the other way, but political correctness and cultural diversity aside, I want her doing well in life — money, success, respect, opportunities, and, most of all, safety.”

¿Perdón? Please correct me if I’m wrong, but is she saying that only whites can do “well in life?” To quote part of the comment Ana left on The New York Times’ website: “Have you noticed our President isn’t Caucasian??! I sure feel he did ‘well in life’!”

Is this just a totally ignorant comment? Can it truly be the author believes money, success, respect, opportunities and safety are only achievable if the color of one’s skin is white. Should we maybe enlighten her with the fact that – as reported by Forbes not too long ago – the third wealthiest man in the WORLD is Mexican? That through the years there have been more than 20 Nobel Prize Latino/Hispanic/Spanish winners in categories such as Literature, Medicine, Peace and Chemistry? That many of best-paid athletes in this country are either Black or Latino? Not to mention the countless doctors, lawyers, filmmakers, journalists, artists, singers, teachers, politicians and scientists who are Latino and can attest to doing “well in life.” And I include myself and my family in this list.

The most ironic part of this article is that the author actually complains about being discriminated against during a train trip to Florida with her Colombian husband because they looked suspicious. She claims she was “stunned,” yet her stereotypical remarks (“Abuela Trujillo in Queens will affirm her dad’s culture and Grandma Thompson will affirm mine — salsa dancing and golf, respectively.” Translation: Latino culture=salsa dancing. American culture=playing golf) prove that she’s just like those officers on her train trip to Florida who singled her and her husband out based on looks.

In the end, every parent has the right to raise their children how they please. But with that right also comes the responsibility to raise a child who will hopefully grow up to be a noble and decent human being – which has nothing to do with the color of our skin or the languages we speak. Or at least that’s what I want most for my children, don’t you?

Racism? Discrimination? Prejudice? Or just a mom being “honest” about the realities out there? What do you think? We’d love to find out, so please leave a comment below.

Photo by creo que soy yo

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about something I read recently. As I have already mentioned, since starting SpanglishBaby, I feel like I spend most of my waking hours here, surfing the internet. Every single time I sit in front of my laptop’s 13-inch screen, I find something new and interesting regarding bilingualism, languages, Spanglish. Anyhow, I still don’t know how I feel about the blog entry in question; the one I can’t get out of my mind. I do know its content is disturbing to me, but I haven’t fully figured out why. And I was thinking maybe you can help me sort it out?

The entry was written a couple of months back for the parenting section of a blog in New Jersey. The author, a Hispanic mother of two, confesses that even though she is bilingual, her kids are not. Of course, she is not the first one, nor–I’m sure–will she be the last parent to do this. It is a well know fact that many second generation Latinos, particularly Mexican-Americans in the West, were forbidden by their parents to speak Spanish, despite their own limitations in English, in an effort to help them assimilate to their new culture. That’s why we see so many people with “Hispanic” last names que no hablan ni pio de español.

To be or not to be…bilingual and bicultural

And it is exactly that–her struggle with assimilation–the main reason the author of the entry uses for deciding not to raise her kids bilingual. She states that she can’t hide her pride when seeing the words “New Jersey” on her children’s birth certificates and that she was secretly delighted when her kids grew up so “American.” Something she didn’t have, I guess. Even so, I fail to see how that has anything to do with giving your kids the gift of bilingualism; a gift the author herself got from her parents.

To be fair, she doesn’t really describe her struggle in this blog entry, so it’s difficult to gauge what she is referring to . This is what I do know from additional research: her parents brought her here as a baby and overstayed their visa. When she was 6 years old, she returned to Argentina with her mother for her grandfather’s funeral. It took her father two years to figure out how she would get them back to the States. Finally, when she was 8 years old, with the help of a coyote they crossed the border illegally and the family was whole again.

I can imagine this being an odyssey for a child. However, I’m still having a hard time understanding the correlation. In other words, her kids are already American, they were born here, so what kind of struggles would they go through if she had taught them her mother tongue? Here’s something else I don’t get: why would she deprive her kids the opportunity to learn who she truly is? I read somewhere about a Korean woman whose parents did not teach her Korean in the name of “assimilation.” The woman has never been able to communicate directly with her grandparents, read her published uncle’s books, feel like she belongs among her Korean community in the States and will not be able to teach Korean to her own two kids. How sad. In the end, she says: “It’s about teaching kids your heritage and making sure things are passed down.”

Belonging to two worlds

And that’s exactly how I feel. For me, teaching Vanessa Spanish has more to do with history and identity than with future advantages and benefits, these are added bonuses. I just simply can’t imagine her not being able to communicate with my 94-year-old grandmother or feeling like a stranger among her own family because she doesn’t understand our native language. Yes, my daughter is American.

Her birth certificate says “Colorado” and she is being raised right here, so I’m sure she’ll grow up “American.” Yet, nothing would make my husband and I more heartbroken than failing to teach our kids the richness of our diverse culture and the blessings of belonging to two worlds. After all, that’s how we’ve been living for a while now and we couldn’t feel luckier. !Gracias papá y mamá!

This is just my opinion. This is an open forum and all points of views are welcomed and ecouraged. What is your point of view? Has this been a struggle for you? Thanks for sharing.

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