Stories from Families About The Power of Multilingual Kids!
By MomsRising/MamásConPoder
An interview with one of the Curators, Nina Perez!
Please tell us the mission of MomsRising, and how you came to work there?
MomsRising/MamásConPoder is committed to advancing policy and cultural change that make the world a better place for all moms and families. Our mission is to work together with families and the community to increase family economic security, to decrease discrimination against women and moms, to fight racism, sexism, and all forms of prejudice in order to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive.
I often wonder what happened to other children who may have not won the teacher lottery. That is why I do this work – because families shouldn’t have to bank on an opportunity lottery to thrive.
Why is the mission of MomsRising so important to you?
I’ve been a part of the MomsRising community for the last five years and I can’t imagine more important work. Growing up, I could see how inequality often impacted families in my community all at once, including my own experience in schools as a dual language learner. Our community (including teachers at my school) told my mother that it was wrong to teach me two languages; often making her feel guilty for her desire to maintain our cultural language. Thankfully, my second grade teacher turned out to be an amazing advocate for us with the school and worked together with my parents to ensure both of my languages were supported, but I often wonder what happened to other children who may have not won the teacher lottery. That is why I do this work – because families shouldn’t have to bank on an opportunity lottery to thrive.
What was your inspiration for writing this book with your fellow co-authors?
This book is a project built out of the passion of MomsRising’s volunteers to ensure there are educational spaces that value the cultures and languages of their families. It was truly a community project with no single voice, but a collection of voices from across the nation. Our MamásConPoder Spanish language community in particular has long discussed dual language learning, the difficulty of finding bilingual early learning environments, and the emotional stigma of speaking a home language other than English in the America today. We wanted to bring those voices and experiences together to show elected leaders, educators, and the community the benefits of speaking multiple languages and how important these programs are to families.
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We wanted to bring those voices and experiences together to show elected leaders, educators, and the community the benefits of speaking multiple languages and how important these programs are to families.
Why do you think it so important to raise children bilingual?
As the daughter of Cuban immigrants, I can say with confidence that few things have helped my professional and personal growth more than being bilingual. All children deserve an educational system that recognizes the benefits of multilingualism and sees the languages and cultures in our neighborhoods as an asset. This book is part of building that change towards a system that sees language diversity as a strength.
What benefits do you see in creating a more multi-lingual community?
Parents and experts are on the same page here — bilingual/multilingual children have distinct advantages both cognitively and socio-emotionally compared to their monolingual peers. Students who know more than one language have exhibited increased emotional intelligence, stronger problem-solving skills, and improved academic outcomes. The benefits range from exhibiting more empathy to having stronger reading comprehension skills. Knowing multiple languages also set our youngest up to be competitive in a global workforce as adults. Furthermore, supporting dual language immersion and home language use is critical to building increased positive self-identity in the early years, strengthening cross-cultural social competence, and creating equitable early education settings that meet the needs of an emerging, and otherwise often marginalized, linguistically diverse community. It’s truly a value on all fronts.
How do you believe your book illustrates these benefits?
By pulling together hundreds of stories on dual language from MomsRising families and matching them with some of the latest data, we’ve been able to present an easy to read qualitative and quantitative snapshot on the benefits of multilingual communities. Data is critical to the conversation, but you can’t get the full picture on dual language without lifting up the experiences of families and educators.
How do you believe your book explains why there is immense value in joining educators with parents?
The book is has been a space of educators and parents (many of who are both!) share the benefits of bilingualism to their families and communities, including many educators speaking on the families they’ve worked with and visa-versa. The stories truly speak for themselves.
Why do you believe that is so important?
By creating a positive image of the bilingual brain, we will help mitigate fears around early childhood home language and set the groundwork for greater investment for dual language learning among elected leaders.
Parents and experts are on the same page here — bilingual/multilingual children have distinct advantages both cognitively and socio-emotionally compared to their monolingual peers.
Continue reading on next page…
My language and culture are critical to my self identification.
How have you seen the benefits of being bilingual evidenced in your personal life?
My bilingualism is one of the greatest gifts my parents could ever have given me. The ability to speak both English and Spanish strengthened my family ties by allowing me to talk to my grandparents in their cultural language, helped me become more social by acting as a translator for my monolingual peers, opened up unique academic opportunities, and made me significantly more competitive in the workforce from day one. To this day, I’m able to access spaces that otherwise wouldn’t have been available to me both domestic and abroad thanks to my language ability. I can’t even begin to imagine who I would be without my bilingual brain.
How have you seen the power of your book effect communities?
Already we are seeing the impacts in both culture change and increasing positive self-identity. Whenever we distribute the book we always hear one of two things – “Wow! I didn’t realize how many benefits there were for the brain” and “It’s so nice to see the experiences of families like mine take a center stage in an education conversation.” We’ve distributed hundreds of books in person to parents, educators, and community leaders at in person events including the National Women’s Convention just last October. We’ve also had close to a thousand parents so far sign up to deliver this book to their school leaders as part of our efforts to increase momentum for dual language programs. The word is getting out!
Spanish is my “love” language, and when I’m able to fluidly use it in my social, familial, and professional spaces, I feel safe.
As MomsRising is specifically dedicated to empowering young women, how do you believe being bilingual can empower women specifically?
Empowering women isn’t simply about a “one size fits all” rallying cry of girl power, but a recognition of their whole person. I know personally that I can never compartmentalize my own identity. I’m never a woman first and Latina second. My language and culture are critical to my self identification, navigating gender discrimination, and even more simply how I’ve been able to have a wonderful relationship with my mother. When readers dive into this book, they will mostly be reading stories by mothers talking about how language is a critical piece in not only to how they teach their children, but how they show love. Spanish is my “love” language, and when I’m able to fluidly use it in my social, familial, and professional spaces, I feel safe. And in turn that safety makes me feel like I can present my full self openly, take risks, and ask for what I need.
What would you say is the most important take-away from your book, that you hope readers understand?
We want readers to step away from this book with a strong belief that our diverse languages and cultures are an asset, not something be afraid of or hide away. We want people to feel excited about encouraging our children to learn more languages and why further investments into dual programs are critical to the well-being and future of our increasingly diverse communities.
Author: Sandra Mercuri
Dr. Mercuri is a nationally and internationally recognized educational consultant in the area of second language acquisition, dual language education, and curriculum integration for biliteracy development. She has over 28 years of experience in teaching in K-12 schools and at the university level in Argentina and the United States. After retiring as a professor from the University of Texas System, she continued to work on research on the development of academic language across the content areas, the use of translanguaging practices for language transfer, and the effect of long-term professional development on dual language, bilingual and ESL teachers’ instructional practices. Dr. Mercuri provides professional development for teachers and administrators as well as for parents. She presents at national and international conferences on issues of second language acquisition and bilingualism, dual language education, translanguaging pedagogy, and ESL strategies. Dr. Mercuri has published articles in the TESOL Quarterly, Talking Points, EJLTS, JMER, TESOL Connections, MEXTESOL, and the NABE journal as well as the Spanish professional journals The Colombian Journal of Bilingual Education: GIST and the Revista Educación y Pedagogía and more than twelve book chapters. Dr. Mercuri is the author of the book titled Supporting Literacy Through Science: The Challenge of Teaching...