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Won't Your Spanish Hurt Their English?

Spanish, of all languages, is nearly missing from the landscape of heritage language schools around the city, writes a Los Angeles parent struggling to bring up bilingual children.

By Rey M. Rodríguez

I was standing in line at a grocery store in Pasadena with my two boys, who were restless and causing a little havoc. I told them to settle down. Diego and Pablo ignored me, but I did get the attention of a woman standing in line. She was concerned not about my boys' behavior, but about my speaking to them in Spanish.

Wouldn't it affect their English? she asked.

I never worry about my children's English because it is too prevalent in their lives for them to lose it. Diego, our first, communicated with my wife, Vivian, and me only in Spanish until he was two, and his first word was agua instead of water. He still understands the language easily. But since starting preschool, he's battled with us to speak or write it.

Spanish is a part of our home life. We have books and watch TV shows in Spanish and only speak Spanish at home. We've also gone on trips to Mexico and Spain so that Diego would realize that in some places people only speak Spanish. But he still was unwilling to use it, and by the age of five he clearly preferred to speak English.

When Diego turned five I realized that we needed help. I had read studies about the ability of bilingual children to switch seamlessly from one language to the other. I wanted both languages to be integral to his identity, and I thought we had two more years before Spanish would no longer be natural for him.

Vivian and I realized that if we wanted our children to be bilingual and bicultural, we couldn't do it alone. We needed a community of people. So we started looking around for Spanish language programs.

Los Angeles has a rich history of heritage language schools focusing on major languages from all over the planet. To name only a few examples, Chinese language schools have served the needs of the immigrants since at least the early 1900s. French speakers have the five-campus Lycee International de Los Angeles, founded in 1978. Japanese Americans and recent immigrants rely on Saturday schools, some of which have been in existence for over 50 years.

I could go on, but the glaring exception is heritage language schools for Spanish-speakers.

After a lot of searching, we learned about one Saturday school too far from home, which appeared to focus on Argentine culture. Finally, a friend of mine discovered a small group of parents who met on a weekly basis to speak Spanish at a local library. I took my two boys there on the first Sunday that I could.

As I entered the library, I was excited to see 10 to 15 families with children in three groups. Some were seated on the floor, mesmerized by the teacher's voice and hand movements; others sat at tables, writing. Some of the toddlers and preschoolers had to be reminded to answer questions in Spanish, while others spoke readily. The teachers were native-born speakers and they were fantastic. They used beautiful books and melodic children's songs in Spanish to sing and dance to. Diego and Pablo, my second, learned about spring and named the days of the week and months of the year at their first class.

Before I knew it Diego was raising his hand, because he understood the questions and wanted to participate. He was no longer alone in a classroom where all the other students spoke English. And I was thrilled. The community that I was looking for existed and by serendipity I had found it.

Still, pleased as I was to have found a place for my boys to express themselves in Spanish, I was amazed and angry that this small "school" was all that the city of Los Angeles could offer. In a city with many Spanish-speakers, why were there not well-established institutions that would teach my children about their heritage, culture, and language?

Why was I sitting on the floor of a public library with a group of parents who after four years of struggle had cobbled together an informal Spanish language heritage school? Why was there only one option for us? Why hadn't these institutions been created years before?

I want my children to be proud of who they are; and to help them, I need a community that signals that Spanish is important to their lives. It amazes me that a two-year-old boy can already grasp that English is the predominant language and that Spanish is secondary and less valued.

The reality is that learning multiple languages at a young age enhances cognition as children grow. We need Spanish language heritage schools to spread throughout the city in numbers that meet the community's needs, similar to the ones that already exist for other major language groups. Without a vibrant expansion of Spanish language education we will continue to be a city divided between those who feel they belong and those who feel they do not.

So I go back to that woman in line at the grocery store: Don't worry that children won't learn English, because they most certainly will. Spanish speakers like my son understand the value of speaking the predominant language. Indeed, they have a thirst for it, and receive most of their education in it. Instead, I would focus on the real danger of kids losing their Spanish. We desperately need Spanish language heritage institutions that encourage the next generation of Spanish speakers to have pride in who they are and the confidence to raise their hand in a democratic society.

Rey M. Rodríguez, vice president of Business & Legal Affairs for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Distribution International, is a grateful son who hopes that he can pass on the gift of speaking at least two languages to his sons, just as his parents were able to do. All opinions expressed are solely his own.

Date Posted: 7/24/2007