Episodios
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In this episode we interviewed Anna Attal, a native English speaker who attended a dual immersion school in Spanish. She tells us about her experience learning Spanish as well as the other benefits of early exposure to other languages and cultures. Overall, she highly recommends the program and says it made her more confident, open-minded, and passionate about learning languages.
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In this episode, we interview María Elena Gutiérrez, daughter of a Spanish dad and American mother, who grew up in the US, went to UT Austin, became a dual immersion teacher, and is raising two bilingual daughters. Given that our children have similar profiles, we allow ourselves to imagine that our children will be just as bilingual and confident as Maria Elena is! We discuss her dad’s quizzing methods, maintaining Spanish traditions in the US, learning to read and write, using (peninsular) Spanish in public, visiting Madrid, family language practices, teaching at a bilingual school, and so much more in this jam-packed episode.
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In this episode we sit down with the two adult daughters of Spaniards, Mili and Pedro, who we interviewed in our last episode of season 3. Sofia and Paula grew up between Germany, the United States, and Hungary, and have now decided to study in the Netherlands. They reflect back on their international upbringing and how it shaped their worldview and identities. Despite having their lives uprooted several times during their adolescence, both appreciate the experiences their parents provided for them and express their desire to continue to travel and explore different countries in their future careers as an international lawyer and physician. Sofia and Paula mention the city of Maastricht, and the university there several times as a haven for international students. Learn more about it here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht
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We wrap season 3 of multilingual mamas reflecting back on the diverse selection of interviews we conducted this season. This time around, we learned about testing practices in US public schools, the bilingual parenting mental load, and how raising bilingual children in a country where two languages or more share a co-official language status looks very different. As usual, in this episode we share where we are in our bilingual parenting journey, including specific information about the challenges we faced this years as well as the wins we celebrated. Make sure to listen all the way to the end of the episode, we have a little surprise in store for you.
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Lina Mueller, the daughter of two Americans who was born and raised in Guatemala, discusses what it was like to grow up speaking Spanish without it being a part of her familial heritage, the confusion some express when they hear a Guatemalan accent come out of a blonde who also speaks perfect English, how her mom created an international school in Antigua, what her identity as a white, English-speaking woman has meant for her experience with bilingualism and biculturalism, and how immersion in another culture has allowed her to overcome the ethnocentrism that plagues many Americans.
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En este episodio hablamos con Mili Paredes y su marido Pedro, una pareja española que emigró a Alemania y que ha criado a sus hijas en tres países diferentes: Alemania, EE .UU . y Hungría. Nos hablan de los factores que tuvieron en cuenta a la hora de mudarse, las ventajas y desventajas de su estilo de vida, y de que es importante abrirse a nuevas experiencias y no quedarse anclado en echar de menos la patria. También nos hablan de sus hijas, donde viven ahora y de cómo su estilo de vida les ha abierto muchas puertas a nivel profesional y personal.
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In this episode we chat with the Mayers, a family of two non-native speakers of Spanish raising their two children bilingual in Spanish and English using an unconventional method. Instead of the more common, one parent-one language method, they would speak in Spanish Monday through Friday and English on the weekends as an entire family. We discuss the benefits of this method such as familial cohesion, cross-linguistic skill transfer, and space for a break from the minority language. It just goes to show, there’s no one right way to raise bilingual children!
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In this episode we sit down with Dr. Kim Potowski, professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and one of the leading experts on dual immersion and Spanish heritage speakers in the United States. She discusses not only the lessons she’s learned from working with Hispanic families trying to raise bilingual children, but also her own experiences raising her two children bilingual in Spanish and English. She has created a treasure trove of materials for parents and teachers that can be found on her website here:
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In this episode we talk with Diandra Morse, a social worker and founder of Bilingual Playdate, an Instagram account and online platform that advocates for multilingualism and serves as a resource for bilingual families. Diandra discusses many topics in this interview including their family’s decision to have her non-native Spanish-speaking husband use only Spanish at home, the mental load of bilingual parenting, obstacles to multilingualism in the US, and how race and language intersect to shape her and her biracial children’s experiences with bilingualism. Check out her IG account here:
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When Veronica Benavides decided to reclaim her Spanish, a language she was discouraged from speaking as a child in Texas, and raise her children in her heritage language, she realized that most bilingual parenting resources for non-dominant parents were geared towards second language speakers. Given the unique emotional and linguistic experience with heritage languages and the lack of existing resources for these families, Dr. Benavides founded the Language Preservation Project (https://thelanguageproject.co), which guides families through the process of reclaiming their family languages, discarding harmful deficit-oriented framing of language proficiencies, and focusing on connection as the heart of bilingualism.
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In this episode we talk to Juliana Ramírez, a bilingual school psychologist and owner of a consulting firm, PERA Services, who explains everything you need to know about special education services, your rights in the US, and how bilingualism might impact your child’s assessment for services. One of our most practical, this information-packed episode is a must listen for any parents confused about educational bureaucracy or anxious about their child being misunderstood due to limited English proficiency. Even if your child hasn’t started school or will attend private school, Juliana’s information is useful to you!
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Dr. Sergio Loza, professor and Director of the Spanish heritage program at the University of Oregon, discusses his experiences growing up in Arizona in the late 90s and early 2000s when English-only and other anti-immigrant legislation was being passed. He describes how he went from hating school, doubting his abilities, and envying his white classmates to valuing his bilingualism, revering his community, and leveraging his talents to improve the educational experience of future generations. Dr. Loza attributes some of this shift to important mentors, teachers, classmates, family members and to his development of Critical Language Awareness. He recommends the following readings for those wishing to understand the power of language ideologies, especially in educational settings:
Glenn Martínez (2003)
https://brill.com/view/journals/hlj/1/1/article-p44_5.xml
Jennifer Leeman (2005)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2005.tb02451.x
Jennifer Leeman (2012)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280156348_Investigating_Language_Ideologies_in_Spanish_as_a_Heritage_Language
Dr. Loza’s co-authored book with Dr. Sara Beaudrie is available here:
https://www.routledge.com/Heritage-Language-Program-Direction-Research-into-Practice/Beaudrie-Loza/p/book/9781032190013
Note: Dr. Loza mentions the correction of the form haiga by some of his Spanish teachers. This form is an equivalent of haya from other Spanish varieties and has existed in parallel with haya since at least the Middle Ages across the Spanish-speaking world. The /g/ appeared in this form via a process similar to the one that led to the appearance of a /g/ in forms like vengo or traigo. Given that it frequently appears in rural varieties of Spanish, it is often stigmatized in a fashion similar to English ain’t. -
In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Krista Byers-Heinlein, a Professor of Developmental Psychology at Concordia University, who specializes in infant development with a focus on language acquisition. She talks about her personal experiences growing up bilingual in Canada, as well as raising a bilingual child in Montréal, the largest metropolitan French-speaking area in the province of Québec. We also discuss how bilingualism researchers are able to study infants long before they’re talking and why that research is important. If you are interested in having your baby participate in one of her studies (and getting a cute T-shirt as compensation), you can find the information here: http://infantresearch.ca/welcome
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In this episode, we chat with Dr. Silvia Perpiñán, a linguist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and mother of a trilingual daughter. One of the languages Silvia and her daughter speak is Catalán, the Romance language native to several regions of Spain and southern France, but which is now a minority language despite concerted revitalization and maintenance efforts. Dr. Perpiñán reflects on the difference between indigenous language maintenance and immigrant language maintenance as well as how societies can better support multilingualism and be more linguistically tolerant.
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In this episode we talk to Dr. Julio Torres, professor of Spanish at UC Irvine and specialist in bilingual education and instructed heritage language acquisition. Dr. Torres, who himself grew up bilingual between Puerto Rico and the mainland US, reflects on the language ideologies he encountered in his different Spanish and English classes and how they shaped how he viewed his own multilingualism. He now trains future teachers in critical language awareness and hopes to empower future generations of bilingual children and their parents to advocate for their language varieties and educational needs. He also gives parents advice on what to expect when their child takes a class in their home language and how to work with the teacher in productive ways.
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In this episode we talk with Burkel siblings Eric and Martine about their experience uprooting their lives in Southern California in the early 70s and moving to France as pre-teens. They discuss the difficulties they encountered not being able to attend public French school due to not speaking any French at all (initially), and how their adolescence in France changed their outlook of the world in a positive way despite the initial culture shock. Eric and Martine speak openly about their imperfect bilingualism and how they still tried to do everything in their power to pass their biculturalism-bilingualism on to their children with differing degrees of success.
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Dr. Iulia Pittman, born and raised in a Hungarian-speaking region of Romania, has dedicated her life to learning and teaching languages. Her recent work in the United States as a German professor and linguist has shown her firsthand just how challenging it can be to raise multilingual children here. In our first episode of season 3, we sit down to talk about her about her adolescent children, her book for bilingual parents, and how to avoid some common mistakes parents make when trying to maintain a minority language.
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We wrap up our second season of Multilingual Mamas reflecting, once more, on all the things we have learned from professionals and fellow parents. This has been a big year for us, going from adding members to our families to seeing our kids become more and more verbal as well as aware of their multilingual environment. Once again, we provide an update on our children’s language development and on our personal journey raising our kids multilingual. We end the episode with a sneak peek of what is to come in season 3.
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In this episode, we sit down with bilingual children’s book author, Natalia Simons, a Spanish-English bilingual who grew up in England. She talks about her desire to help children going through the experiences of isolation, confusion, and alienation that can come with bilingualism and biculturalism, and to instead help them view their dual identities as their superpower. Her books, including The Spanglish Girl are available for purchase on Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.com/Spanglish-Girl-Chica-Espanglish/dp/B08NWVMDQF -
In this episode we tackle an issue that comes up for many multilingual or multicultural families: moving. We talk with psychiatrist Dr. Alma Moser about her work with “third-culture kids”, or children who are forming their own individual identity, different from that of both their parents and their peers. Dr. Moser discusses common challenges children face when moving and how parents can best support their children through this process.
Books referenced:
Zurer Pearson, B. (2010). Consigue que tu hijo sea billingüe. Bilingual Readers: Madrid. (English version)
https://www.amazon.com/Consigue-que-hijo-biling%C3%BCe-Spanish/dp/1518748481
SINEWS: Multilingual Therapy Blog: https://www.sinews.es/en/blog/ - Mostrar más
