Last night, my daughter, PJ, a first grader, was watching Hi5 with her little sister and they were singing a song with some Spanish words and accents. Well, since I’m Mexican, you’d assume I would speak Spanish and therefore, so would my children, right? Well, not so fast. 
See, I grew up in Utah and even though my Mom can speak Spanish, she rarely does and never spoke to us kids directly in Spanish. Even our Grandmother spoke to us in English. So, 3 generations later, the language is all but lost in my family. I’m guessing this is all too common in today’s ethnic communities. The kids are no longer speaking their native language and parents aren’t making an effort to carry it on. My daughter picks up some from her school mates, but unless she takes a class, she will never learn to roll her “r’s”. Which is what prompted this post. We tried for 15 minutes to teach her to do just that, make that “rrrrrr” sound when saying the word, “sombrero”. No matter how hard she tried or how much we showed her, nothin’, nada…just a very disappointed little girl and a lot of spit.
Anyway, it would be interesting to hear from other mixed families and find out what you do? Do you still speaking your native language? Are your kids bilingual? Do you think it matters?
~ sdmom22
FergatROn
/ May 19, 2009Hi,
I’m Jamaican and my wife is French Canadian, so really our kids should be able to speak broken English and speak French. Right now neither one of them does. My wife is making a great effort though – we have some bilingual DVDs, such as: Muzzy. They watch is just about every other day. She wants them to learn Spanish first, then all the other languages. She knows more Spanish than I would care to and certainly more French. She doesn’t speak much french though, only with her father and sister. I try, but I’m as anglo as it comes with foreign languages.
The kids are in PreK-3 and PreK-2 so the PreK-3-kid has a Spanish class and he’s learning some basics. The PreK-2-kid is learning from our DVDs and the newborn is… well… just sitting there watching.
sdmom22
/ May 19, 2009FergatRon,
Interesting you’ve chosen to teach Spanish first. I guess since you’re wife speaks Spanish more than French, it makes sense. Very nice that the school offers Spanish in the kids classes. Wish they did here. Not in our school, but maybe the next. Our daughter will attend a different school next year.
When our daughter was in preschool, we thought about a dual immersion elementary (Kinder, 1st are 100% Spanish spoken, then 50% in remaining years). Unfortunately, we moved and feel it’s too late to put her in a situation like that now that she’s in 1st grade. I think we missed our window.
As for me, I really need to buckle down and take some classes and learn Spanish, regardless. Maybe I can do better than when in college and actually get better than a “B”. So embarrassing to be Mexican in Spanish class and not be able to roll your “rrrrrr’s”.
Ana Lilian
/ May 20, 2009Hi!
Both my husband and I speak Spanish at home so it´s the natural thing for us to speak Spanish to our daughter. Even though we have an advantage it´s still a challenge because English is dominant and she hears it everywhere.
We are working really hard at cultivating her love for our native language and culture. We read to her in Spanish, buy movies and music in Spanish and try to socialize with other Spanish-speaking children and parents. She goes to daycare twice a day and she is getting the English from there.
I know this is our window of opportunity for her to learn two or more languages and we want to give this gift to her.
I even started a blog to create a community of parents on this same bilingual mission to share, learn and connect with each other. Please come visit us so you can feel part of a very large community that will encourage you every step of the way: http://SpanglishBaby.com
sdmom22
/ May 26, 2009Thanks for the invite and link! I’ll definitely check out spanglishbaby.com.
Andrea
/ June 24, 2009I am half puerto rican and my husband is half french. Our son can count in spanish and we have a computer game with both languages on it. He is only 4 but the more exposure the better. As a child the only spanish my father taught me was shut up and sit down. I learned spanish in high school and college because my abuelitos spoke very little english. My spanish is not perfect but it is enough that I can watch TV. I hope my son will be able to absorb at least that much if not more. Good luck!!
Andrea
sdmom22
/ June 24, 2009Hi Andrea! I think I will have to take that route too (and take yet another college class in spanish). It is my mission, as is my brother’s (expecting his first child) to have our children be bilingual. It has to start with me and I have to stop making excuses. Thanks for the inspiration!
Masha
/ June 24, 2009My family made this a huge issue. When I attempted to answer my mother in English when she was speaking Russian to me, well I got a smack and a lecture. =) It is easier for me, since I am bilingual and it doesn’t matter too much to switch from one to the other, but when it comes to my future kids my mother sat both myself and Mohammed, my fiance, down and demanded that we preserve as many languages as possible. Now Mohammed is from Ghana and he is trilingual… so this may get tricky in the future.
But many of my friends know 4 or 5 languages. I have to admit that it helps greatly in this globalized society and gives them a tremendous advantage.