Speaker 1: So I'm here in the studio with producer and new mom.
Speaker 1: Hey Maria, So Genie, you just had a baby boy, Martine.
Speaker 2: Yes, and Maria we talked a ton about having kids
Speaker 2: that when I was pregnant, or when I wasn't pregnant,
Speaker 2: or little did we know that I was pregnant.
Speaker 1: And the next week you were like, uh, I'm pregnant.
Speaker 2: Say kay. And now he's seven months and it's flown
Speaker 2: by love it.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: And he's doing a lot of bad, bad, bad, bad bad.
Speaker 1: So what language are you speak to him in?
Speaker 2: We are speaking Spanish immersion, all Spanish all the time.
Speaker 1: My son. That's what we did with Raul. It was
Speaker 1: monolingual Spanish one percent all the time.
Speaker 2: And did it stick totally? Are you kidding?
Speaker 1: He's multi lingual now he has a facility for language
Speaker 1: and he's not afraid of it because we've spoken well.
Speaker 1: First he was monolingual Spanish, and then when his sister
Speaker 1: came and that was where it got a little complicated.
Speaker 1: It was fine with him alone, just the three of
Speaker 1: us speaking Spanish.
Speaker 2: Does she speak now? She speaks, but it's all hard.
Speaker 2: I had this conversation a lot with my husband Ernesto.
Speaker 2: He's from Peru, and he was terrified that raising our
Speaker 2: son here in the US meant that he wasn't going
Speaker 2: to speak perfect Spanish.
Speaker 1: And then they're going to go back to the home country,
Speaker 1: and then they're going to be teased and made fun of,
Speaker 1: and then they're not going to want.
Speaker 2: To speak Spanish. And that is exactly what happened to
Speaker 2: my brother. He was that kid who said, I don't
Speaker 2: want to speak Spanish. My parents are from the Dominican Republic.
Speaker 2: For the most part, we spoke Spanish at home growing up,
Speaker 2: as you can hear in these adorable home recordings from
Speaker 2: my childhood practice here. But my brother and I pretty
Speaker 2: much always speaking English and have since we were kids.
Speaker 2: We lived in small towns between Georgia and Alabama, so
Speaker 2: it wasn't like there was other kids or even adults
Speaker 2: for him to speak Spanish too. In the early nineties.
Speaker 2: But Maria, like your son, I learned Spanish first. Wow.
Speaker 1: That is so cute.
Speaker 2: That's you, that's little Genie.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: My mom used to sing to me in Spanish, Ye God,
Speaker 2: and she used to read books in Spanish. So I
Speaker 2: speak Spanish at home with Ernesto and little Marting, but
Speaker 2: now that I'm a parent myself, it kind of got
Speaker 2: me to thinking about the decisions that my own parents
Speaker 2: made in terms of language for me and my younger brother.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to figure out why was it that
Speaker 2: I learned Spanish at home and my brother didn't.
Speaker 1: From Futuro Media and PRX, It's Latino USA by Maria
Speaker 1: Rosa and Today Espanol Spanish as a First Language, a
Speaker 1: story about the decisions Latino parents make, like me, when
Speaker 1: we decide to raise our children speaking Spanish. We first
Speaker 1: aired this show in twenty eighteen, but it's as relevant
Speaker 1: today as it was then. So let's revisit our conversation
Speaker 1: about raising kids bilingually now.
Speaker 3: So my name is Godless Montago. Yeah, I like long
Speaker 3: walks on the beach sunsets.
Speaker 2: That is my brother, or as I like to call him, Nerdo.
Speaker 2: He is literally a rocket scientist. Oh my god.
Speaker 4: What.
Speaker 3: I'm a mechanical engineering professor at the University of South Alabama.
Speaker 3: I got my bachelor's, master's and PhD in aerospace engineering
Speaker 3: at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: He's literally a genius.
Speaker 1: I have a brother like that doesn't speak perfect Spanish,
Speaker 1: by the way, and neither does Carlos.
Speaker 3: There were two reasons why I didn't want to speak Spanish. One,
Speaker 3: it was hard for me. I didn't have the necessary
Speaker 3: vocabulary to talk to my parents in a way that
Speaker 3: I felt I could explain my ideas correctly. Since it
Speaker 3: wasn't my first language, it was tough for me to
Speaker 3: generate sentences to reply back.
Speaker 2: So I get it right. We all feel embarrassment when
Speaker 2: we're uncomfortable with a language, but for my brother it
Speaker 2: seemed to go deeper.
Speaker 3: You don't want people to think that you're stupid and
Speaker 3: laugh at you. You know, do you sit there and
Speaker 3: you just say, why bother speaking in Spanish when we
Speaker 3: all speak englishless is speaking English and that I'll be
Speaker 3: much easier.
Speaker 2: We both lived in the same house, we both grew
Speaker 2: up with the same parents. I speak Spanish since I
Speaker 2: was a baby and Carlos didn't. So how does that work?
Speaker 2: How does that happen? I wanted to really understand and
Speaker 2: get inside my brother's head, figure out what it is
Speaker 2: that kept him from wanting to be kind of like
Speaker 2: a part of that culture and understanding the language. So
Speaker 2: I asked him what he thought the difference was between
Speaker 2: the two of us.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things, Genie was the age gap.
Speaker 3: You and I are six years apart, I think over
Speaker 3: six and a half. Yeah, And so by the time
Speaker 3: I came into the picture, didn't the family already decide
Speaker 3: to speak English at home? As far as I understand,
Speaker 3: before I was born, you three spoke into Spanish all
Speaker 3: the time, and then when I was older, the house
Speaker 3: became an English thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's that's a question for Mummy
Speaker 2: and puppy. Mammy two Milmo Cambrangealis Okay, Okay. I talked
Speaker 2: to Carlos last week. Yes, I asked my mom if
Speaker 2: there was a conscious decision to switch to English when
Speaker 2: my brother was little. I didn't really remember that being
Speaker 2: an actual decision.
Speaker 5: We did change to English, but the situation happened that
Speaker 5: the preschool or kindergarten teacher when he was learning English,
Speaker 5: she said that he was having a harder times. So
Speaker 5: the situation wasn't that it was our decision. The decision
Speaker 5: was kind of may florous.
Speaker 2: When Carlos was born, we lived in a tiny town
Speaker 2: in Alabama. We were the only Latino family there, and
Speaker 2: after that we moved to a suburb of Atlanta. It
Speaker 2: was not the international metropolis it is today. So the
Speaker 2: teacher explicitly said to you, don't speak Spanish to him
Speaker 2: at home because he's getting confused.
Speaker 5: She didn't say Spanish per se, she said, don't speak
Speaker 5: two languages at home.
Speaker 2: And what did you think about that?
Speaker 4: Dat?
Speaker 2: Did that make you feel?
Speaker 5: Well? I was caring more about Carlos than anything else.
Speaker 5: In my time. You respect authority, and a teacher was authority.
Speaker 5: So if the authority said you cannot do this, we
Speaker 5: followed through.
Speaker 2: So for her to.
Speaker 5: Tell me that he was having a hard time, he
Speaker 5: just told me, I'm not going to make lie harder
Speaker 5: for him.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: So the teacher basically said, you're setting your kid back
Speaker 1: by raising him bilingually, which you know factually we know
Speaker 1: now is not true. I mean right, this has totally
Speaker 1: been disproven correct.
Speaker 2: And I spoke to an expert about this.
Speaker 6: My name is Lisa Badour. I'm a professor in Communication,
Speaker 6: scientist and disorders at the University of Texas at Austin.
Speaker 2: I asked Lisa if she'd heard of cases like my brothers.
Speaker 2: You know, where a teacher tells the parent it's just
Speaker 2: better to speak one language.
Speaker 6: I think that it's unfortunately a long term common practice
Speaker 6: that people do suggest to families that they speak only
Speaker 6: one language, and that's usually English, to their children, to
Speaker 6: prevent them from becoming confused.
Speaker 2: It happens quite a bit, right, and it's not even
Speaker 2: something that's in the past, which is what I originally thought.
Speaker 2: The subject actually came up the other day in this
Speaker 2: Facebook mom group that I'm part of. One mom asked
Speaker 2: a question about her children being delayed and speaking. She
Speaker 2: was kind of wondering if it was because they were
Speaker 2: hearing multiple languages and hearing English with an accent.
Speaker 6: But Lisa says, there's no real evidence that there's an
Speaker 6: increased risk for having language learning difficulties just because you're
Speaker 6: hearing and using two languages. We know that hearing and
Speaker 6: using two languages offers social and cognitive advantages.
Speaker 2: So being bilingual is not related to learning difficulties. The
Speaker 2: teacher was wrong.
Speaker 5: I think it was a frame of mind of the area.
Speaker 5: They were not exposed to seeing other people learning other languages,
Speaker 5: seeing other cultures. There was barely no immigrants in Alphaeda.
Speaker 2: So there weren't a lot of Spanish speakers in Alpharetta,
Speaker 2: but our parents would send us to the Dominican Republic
Speaker 2: for six weeks at a time to be with our grandmother, like,
Speaker 2: go be with your family and speak Spanish.
Speaker 1: Were you like, we're going to the domain Obama's or
Speaker 1: was it like, oh my god, we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: speak Spanish.
Speaker 2: For me, it was like, oh, I get to go
Speaker 2: hang out with my cousins and be with family and stuff,
Speaker 2: and you know, the language was the language and you
Speaker 2: just spoken. But for him, I guess it was a
Speaker 2: little scarier.
Speaker 5: I always told Axl your causin to speak to him
Speaker 5: in Spanish. But my sister wanted to take advantage of
Speaker 5: Carlos for Axel to learn English, and of course it
Speaker 5: was easier for Carlos to speak English, so then he
Speaker 5: just turned into English. So you know, for every angle
Speaker 5: if we went home, they were trying to use him
Speaker 5: for practicing, and then if he came here, we were
Speaker 5: in areas where Spanish wasn't that frequently spoken.
Speaker 1: I feel your mom's pain. It is a challenge for
Speaker 1: us because the world has become smaller, and frankly, English
Speaker 1: is a very dumb language in the world exactly.
Speaker 2: But then there's a part of speaking Spanish. That's kind
Speaker 2: of cultural right. Growing up for me, something just clicked.
Speaker 2: I started watching telenovelas, I read people in nefanol, and
Speaker 2: I got really into Latin music. But my brother was
Speaker 2: so different.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was a metal head in high school
Speaker 3: and listened to a bunch of you know, fresh metal
Speaker 3: and metallica and all that.
Speaker 2: Maria. It's kind of weird because it sounds like what
Speaker 2: he's saying is that a thrash metal metallic, a loving
Speaker 2: person cannot be Latino, but metal is huge in Latin America.
Speaker 2: Side note, my husband, who was born and raised in Peru,
Speaker 2: is actually a big metal fan. But that's another story.
Speaker 2: Aside from being like, you know, a metal head, skateboarding teenager,
Speaker 2: was there anything else that made you be like, I
Speaker 2: want nothing to do with this culture.
Speaker 3: Oh that was probably just I was a lazy teenager.
Speaker 3: Probably probably I probably just didn't care. I just wanted
Speaker 3: to hang out with my friends. I mean, Bonnie when
Speaker 3: she met me in college, didn't even know that I
Speaker 3: spoke Spanish because I didn't act like it. I don't know,
Speaker 3: did you see something different?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 7: When we met it was I mean, I was just
Speaker 7: like I was dating any other American guy, and then
Speaker 7: it hid me when I walked into your parents' house
Speaker 7: and there was a lot of music playing and your
Speaker 7: parents were yelling in Spanish, and I was like, oh, oh,
Speaker 7: I mean, I didn't even know.
Speaker 2: That's Bonnie, who is not Latina. She's white and grew
Speaker 2: up in Florida. She took some Spanish classes in high
Speaker 2: school but doesn't really speak. They've been married for ten
Speaker 2: years and have two beautiful kids, and they're living in
Speaker 2: South Alabama. So I asked my brother, you know, does
Speaker 2: he have any regrets about not speaking Spanish more when
Speaker 2: we were growing up?
Speaker 3: What I wish something would be different?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: I mean, Mommy and Boppy moved to the United States
Speaker 3: to you know, to give us a better life, and
Speaker 3: that's that's where we grew up. And people speak English here.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm married somebody who only speaks English, and
Speaker 3: so I think that's just kind of how it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, at the end of the day, it's just
Speaker 3: you're just trying to convey an idea. That's what language
Speaker 3: is for, right, and so why would you purposely make
Speaker 3: it harder for yourself?
Speaker 2: From my brother's perspective. It's kind of like English is easier,
Speaker 2: So why am I going to make my life harder
Speaker 2: by trying to speak Spanish? If I can communicate and
Speaker 2: I can convey my ideas in English, there's no incentive
Speaker 2: to speak Spanish.
Speaker 1: Well, it seems like he just doesn't put being Latino
Speaker 1: Spanish speaker. It seems like that is not like his
Speaker 1: top three most important things in terms of his how
Speaker 1: he identifies and sees his.
Speaker 2: Life, right. I mean, he might not have ever identified
Speaker 2: really with his Latino side, but now he's older and
Speaker 2: things change. Both of us have kids and we have
Speaker 2: to decide how we're going to raise them. I know
Speaker 2: what my stances on passing on my language and my
Speaker 2: heritage to my son, but I don't really know what's
Speaker 2: in Carlos's head or how he wants to raise his family.
Speaker 2: How old are the kids? Elena is four and Louis
Speaker 2: is almost two. Okay, wait a second, you noticed, didn't wait?
Speaker 2: Of course? Well that's the giveaway. Elena and Louis, Louis Carlos.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I get a I have a hint, I
Speaker 1: have an idea of what happens. Do you know, dun
Speaker 1: dun dum coming up on Latino USA. Does Carlos speak
Speaker 1: Spanish to his kids? Stay with us? All right, we're
Speaker 1: back and I'm here in the studio with producer Gini Montalgo.
Speaker 2: Hey Maria, all right, so Giny.
Speaker 1: Before the break, we were talking about bilingualism and your
Speaker 1: brother and what his plans are for his own kids.
Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier that Carlos didn't really like speaking Spanish
Speaker 2: when he was a kid, but he actually does speak
Speaker 2: it now. In seventh grade, you had the option to
Speaker 2: take a language, and he chose Spanish and continued on
Speaker 2: into ap Spanish in high school. He speaks it with
Speaker 2: an accent, but he's stuck with it and eventually he learned.
Speaker 2: But before I tell you what my brother decided to
Speaker 2: do with his kids, let's talk to Lisa Bador again,
Speaker 2: our expert, and have her unpack some of the things
Speaker 2: that go into teaching your child your native language.
Speaker 6: I think people think that bilingualism will just happen, and
Speaker 6: really it takes that kind of ongoing effort to value
Speaker 6: and you keep using your Spanish day after day so
Speaker 6: that the child understands that it's important.
Speaker 2: I asked her about how you can get your kid
Speaker 2: to become bilingual when you have one parent who just
Speaker 2: speaks English and another parent that speaks English and.
Speaker 6: Spanish, in many cases, it would be a matter of
Speaker 6: setting up more structured situations so that there's more opportunities
Speaker 6: to hear and use those languages. You won't be able
Speaker 6: to count as much on the naturalistic environment to provide
Speaker 6: enough input for the child to really get up and
Speaker 6: running with the first language.
Speaker 2: Okay, so naturalistic environment could be For instance, like when
Speaker 2: I was born, my parents had just arrived to the
Speaker 2: US a year before that to study. They had tons
Speaker 2: of international friends, and little Genie arrives to two parents
Speaker 2: who speak Spanish and are surrounded by Spanish speaking friends.
Speaker 2: That is a naturalistic environment that in my case made
Speaker 2: it fairly easy to learn Spanish from day one. But
Speaker 2: when you have a home where there's only one parent
Speaker 2: who speaks.
Speaker 6: It will probably require yet more effort on that parent's
Speaker 6: part is filingual.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I wonder at one point if the child
Speaker 2: then realizes, Okay, mom and dad are speaking in English,
Speaker 2: why am I bothering with this other language?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 6: Huh, It does happen, I think, But if you persist,
Speaker 6: you can get there.
Speaker 2: So it's not impossible, Maria, it just takes work.
Speaker 1: Because my husband is more dominant in Spanish, it was
Speaker 1: much easier for us to kind of be in the
Speaker 1: Spanish realm. But we never forced our kids. We never
Speaker 1: forced them to answer us in Spanish. And I got
Speaker 1: to tell you, there were times when I was like,
Speaker 1: that was a mistake. We should have been forcing them.
Speaker 1: I heard stories of some families where if you didn't
Speaker 1: speak Spanish, you wouldn't get fed if you didn't speak Spanish, No, no, no, steed, oh,
Speaker 1: you had to speak Spanish. And in our house, Hitman
Speaker 1: would answer in Spanish all the time. And then I'd
Speaker 1: be lazy to be honest with you.
Speaker 2: It does take effort. And Maria, you know who's making
Speaker 2: an effort. Oh your brother, Oh my brother, Oh my God,
Speaker 2: making an effort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh.
Speaker 2: Huh, well so so, But Bunny, did you guys sit
Speaker 2: down and make a conscious decision that you wanted the
Speaker 2: kids to speak Spanish.
Speaker 7: I feel like my inability to communicate with Carlos's extended
Speaker 7: family is something that I really don't like, and I
Speaker 7: don't want the kids to have to experience that. And
Speaker 7: I think that teaching them Spanish from a very young age.
Speaker 7: It just seemed like any help we could give them, would,
Speaker 7: you know, give them the courage to sort of embrace
Speaker 7: what is half of their culture and a language that's
Speaker 7: very essential to it.
Speaker 2: Well, so, Carlos, what happens when they get to an
Speaker 2: age and they're like, well, buppy, you didn't want to
Speaker 2: speak Spanish growing up, so why do I have to?
Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of like eating broccoli. I mean,
Speaker 3: if I don't eat broccoli, they won't do it either.
Speaker 3: So there's not really much I can say there. I
Speaker 3: think at the end of the day, I can make
Speaker 3: a conscious decision to talk in Spanish to them, and
Speaker 3: so if they want to communicate with me, they're going
Speaker 3: to have to understand it.
Speaker 2: Whoa whoa Very different from Carlos in part one.
Speaker 1: Yes, Carlo's Metallica. I'm going out on my skateboard and
Speaker 1: don't talk to me about Spanish.
Speaker 2: Whoa Yeah? And Elena's favorite song is actually by Shiquita,
Speaker 2: which is super cute. So as the kids grow, the
Speaker 2: pediatrician is constantly monitoring their language development. One of the
Speaker 2: things that Carlo's talked to her about was bilingual children and.
Speaker 3: The one thing that they said is that the reason
Speaker 3: why Elena understands me speaking Spanish, it's because I only
Speaker 3: speak Spanish to her. The reason why she doesn't talk
Speaker 3: back to me in Spanish is because I give her
Speaker 3: the opportunity to speak in English. Apparently, if I want
Speaker 3: to force Elena to speak in Spanish, I have to
Speaker 3: pretend I don't understand English. So one of these days
Speaker 3: I feel like maybe I'll snap and just say, you
Speaker 3: know what, Elena do medenus cabala and enespanol sola mante
Speaker 3: And if she wants to talk to her dad, she's
Speaker 3: got to talk in Spanish. Between all of the tantrums
Speaker 3: and everything else that goes on. That's a really hard fight.
Speaker 2: I haven't been a parent for that long, but I
Speaker 2: get that a lot of it is picking your battles,
Speaker 2: kind of like, do I want to go there? My
Speaker 2: kid is throwing a tantrum? Do I really want to
Speaker 2: make them speak Spanish to me right now? But that's
Speaker 2: the thing.
Speaker 1: Godless will have to make that decision, probably really soon
Speaker 1: before Lena gets much older, and then it's just going
Speaker 1: to have to be written in stone. And he's the
Speaker 1: one who's going to have to kind of live with
Speaker 1: that decision.
Speaker 2: So I am still curious. What was the light bulb
Speaker 2: moment for my brother, Like what changed for him? Why
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, now it's okay to pass on
Speaker 2: your culture, when as a kid he was like, no,
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 3: What changed really was the fact that when I got older.
Speaker 3: I mean, you start to think about your heritage, and
Speaker 3: you know, you start listening to Spanish music on the radio,
Speaker 3: and you start playing this kind of music for your kids,
Speaker 3: and you want to give that heritage to your children.
Speaker 3: So I kind of just said, you know, I can't
Speaker 3: just keep being embarrassed and not worrying about it. So
Speaker 3: I just said, I'm just gonna, you know, teach this
Speaker 3: language to my kids, and your world opens up. I mean,
Speaker 3: now if you can speak Spanish, there's so many countries
Speaker 3: you can travel, there's so many books that you can read,
Speaker 3: there's so many songs that you can sing. You can
Speaker 3: just experience the world completely different.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you recognize that you kind of like
Speaker 2: pushed it away, Like why now I want.
Speaker 3: My kids to connect to that at least in some way,
Speaker 3: and maybe they'll do the same thing as me. I mean,
Speaker 3: they're growing up in South Alabama. So I mean, they'll
Speaker 3: probably just go to a bunch of crawfish boils and
Speaker 3: get a big truck.
Speaker 1: But you can go to a lot of crawfish boils
Speaker 1: and own a truck and still speak Spanish, right.
Speaker 2: You can talk about the truck in Spanish. Insightful.
Speaker 3: I think it's because I have a family now. Before
Speaker 3: I think it was just about me. But now when
Speaker 3: you have a family, it's not about you anymore.
Speaker 2: When I think about it, Maria, it's about fear. Right.
Speaker 2: As parents, we're terrified that our children aren't going to
Speaker 2: speak perfect Spanish, And as the child, you're terrified you're
Speaker 2: going to be made fun of for not speaking it well.
Speaker 2: And whether or not your kid learns to speak your
Speaker 2: native language and learns to speak it with an accent
Speaker 2: kind of depends on a lot of different factors that
Speaker 2: are totally out of your control.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, there's just so much to this issue.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, whether or not you can get
Speaker 1: back to your home country, whether or not you have
Speaker 1: you know people who are able to speak Spanish full
Speaker 1: time at home, whether or not you have people who
Speaker 1: are able to speak really good English in the same home.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's definitely hard, but godless.
Speaker 2: I'm proud of him. I mean, he had a lot
Speaker 2: of fear and a lot of embarrassment growing up, but
Speaker 2: then he just kind of like had kids and was like,
Speaker 2: you know what, it's not about me anymore. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to kick the embarrassment to the curb and I'm
Speaker 2: going to speak this language because I want them to
Speaker 2: learn it. Imartin, imrting Martin. I'm going to keep singing
Speaker 2: Spanish songs to him, just like my mom sang to me.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to hope for the best, love.
Speaker 5: You ask your.
Speaker 1: Oh bluggy.
Speaker 2: It kag, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: So that's little Martin and he's singing Lama. He's two
Speaker 1: years old now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all day long he sings and he puts the
Speaker 2: words that he knows to the tune of la.
Speaker 1: But it's all words in Spanish.
Speaker 2: In Spanish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. That's what he feels most comfortable with
Speaker 1: right now. Ya, So how's the Spanish thing going.
Speaker 2: It's going.
Speaker 1: The demos basubervien.
Speaker 2: It's definitely harder than I thought because we speak Spanish
Speaker 2: at home, so that's not hard. But he's regardless getting
Speaker 2: exposed to two languages, so he's not speaking as fluidly
Speaker 2: as I see other kids doing at his age. So
Speaker 2: it's a little bit discouraging.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that kind of like your own sense
Speaker 1: of feeling discouraged or someone telling you you should be worried?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's my own mom guilt.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. There is this notion that you
Speaker 1: get really worried, But really your son is more brilliant
Speaker 1: than you can imagine because he's processing two languages at
Speaker 1: the same time. And so it's kind of like, can
Speaker 1: you just applaud yourself for doing that and for staying
Speaker 1: or attempting to stay positive?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean I definitely try to remind myself
Speaker 2: that I was kind of the product of the same
Speaker 2: kind of upbringing, and I am speaking to you in
Speaker 2: full sentences, so I guess I turned out okay.
Speaker 1: Well, So, speaking of that upbringing, what's the latest with
Speaker 1: your brother?
Speaker 2: Things are going good with him, he has another baby. Hey,
Speaker 2: they're still keeping up the same thing, you know, one parent,
Speaker 2: one language.
Speaker 1: And does he feel good about the decision about making
Speaker 1: his family fully bilingual? Is he like one hundred percent?
Speaker 2: Yeah? He says, the kids are listening to books in
Speaker 2: Spanish now too, so I'd say he's pretty committed.
Speaker 1: Okay, Genie, So what are the next steps for you
Speaker 1: and Martine?
Speaker 4: He just started a tooth program which we're adjusting to,
Speaker 4: but it's a fully bilingual program, so I'm very excited.
Speaker 4: I think he's going to make a lot more progress now,
Speaker 4: especially being around other kids.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like you're doing the right thing. It's
Speaker 1: more just like, how do moms who want to teach
Speaker 1: their kids to be fully bilingual or stronger in Spanish?
Speaker 2: First?
Speaker 1: How do we do it in a society when all
Speaker 1: you hear is English? So kudos to you for doing it.
Speaker 2: Kudos to you for doing it. That's it for today.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Gini Montalvo and edited by
Speaker 1: Antonia Seedehidro and Marlon Bishop. It was mixed by Stephanie Lebau.
Speaker 1: Fact checking for this episode by Zoe Malick. The Latino
Speaker 1: USA team includes Julia Cruso, Jessica, Elis Victoria Strada, Rinaldo
Speaker 1: Lanoz Junior, Andreopez Brussado, Luis Luna, Johni mart Marquez, Marta Martinez,
Speaker 1: Nur Saudi, and Nancy Trujillo. Vanille Ramirez is our co
Speaker 1: executive producer. I'm also a co executive producer of the
Speaker 1: show and also your host, Martian Josa. Join us again
Speaker 1: on our next episode. In the meantime, I'll see you
Speaker 1: on all of our social media, especially an Instagram Yeste
Speaker 1: la proxy Yes Bye.
Speaker 8: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising
Speaker 8: Simons Foundation. Unlocking knowledge, opportunity, and possibilities more at hsfoundation
Speaker 8: dot org, Skyline Foundation and funding for Latino USA is.
Speaker 8: Coverage of a culture of health is made possible in
Speaker 8: part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Speaker 2: I'm not internationally known, but I'm known to rock the microphone. Sorry,