It was never a question that we’d raise our children bilingually.  My mother worked with immigrants and refugees and I was raised with a value that one is to speak other languages.  She imparted us with the understanding that it’s not cool, it’s not hip, it’s just the least you can do in our world to connect with others.  And yet my Spanish is a treacherous combination of what I learned through my years of doing social work combined with what I learned living in the highlands of Guatemala where Spanish was their second language.  My partner and I founded a Spanish language preschool in an effort to, in part, help the girls have some chance of actually learning the language as well as the values around multi-lingualism and multi-culturalism. We travel to Spanish speaking places whenever we can.  We beg all our family and friends who are native Spanish speakers to talk with them in Spanish and I continue to hack through having Spanish be my primary language with them.
 
Since becoming a parent, I have hoped that my two daughters would not object to this but I woke up to that reality last year, when my five-year-old daughter Mikaela called my name. “Mama,” she said. “Si?” I answered. “I want a normal mom,” she said. Why was I up for replacement? Among other things, “No one else speaks Spanish at the swimming pool.” It’s the classic scenario: what for me has been a necessary value in our family has come up against what she, at such a young age, perceives to be “normal” and she is left feeling uncomfortably different.

As a family we had talked about moving to another country at some point. We are not there yet for a number of reasons, but we made a commitment to take a long trip this year as a way of seeing what it might be like to actually live somewhere else.  For three weeks in December and January, we traveled in Mexico, and for us, this seemed a lifetime.  When you’re really able to practice being in the moment, three weeks can feel like forever.  We traveled to a number of small towns along the western coast and had a glorious time of it.  We spontaneously swam in the ocean with dolphins, we tried really hard to surf, we ate more salsa fresca than anyone could imagine, we helped turtle hatchlings find their way into the waves, and we praised the sun and the warmth by the minute. 

And then there was the day my daughters went to public school. Toward the end of our trip we were in a small community, and I was told by locals that the 4 and 5 year olds have their own school for kindergarten and that it would open again after the holidays on Monday.  We let the girls know that we were going to check it out.  No resistance from them.  So that morning we found ourselves at the gate with all the other parents of 4 and 5 year olds in the community.  Our girls—who were then two and a half and five and a half--were the only ones not in a uniform, the only ones not raised in that community, the only ones who didn’t know everybody else, and the only ones for whom Spanish was not their dominant spoken language.

The teachers said it’d be fine for us to attend and we were shown into the one room classroom. The tile floors and concrete walls meant the teacher (1 teacher for 38 children) had to yell the entire time just to be heard.  They did a lovely introduction circle and welcomed Mikaela and Aliyah, and then it was time to draw what Santa brought you for Christmas.  Mikaela looked at me questioningly. Our Chanukah celebrations had not prepared her for this.  “Just draw something you’ve gotten on your trip,” I encouraged her.  So she sat with her three other classmates at a table with broken crayons and one piece of paper doing her drawing.  Oscar was our guide.  He was five years old and knew everything about everyone. Anytime anyone said anything in class, he’d lean over and whisper to us who they were, what their scene was, and whether or not they were someone we should hang around. Mikaela paid close attention and saw him as an immediate friend. One after the other the children presented their drawings to the class, Mikaela being the fourth. I was quite shocked to see her eagerly stand up and present her drawing, never defaulting to English.  Her joy at feeling connected again to a group of potential friends was palpable.  In all my thinking about raising them bilingually, I had failed to connect the dots on just what a motivating factor being able to make friends can be in language acquisition. Then it was outside time, and Aliyah and Mikaela played for 2 hours with their new classmates.  

I sat on the playground, listening to the children bantering with each other, noticing the mural of two children painted on the wall with white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes (looking unrepresentative of any child on the playground), and I took in what it meant that my girls were playing tag in a public school, in a small town in Mexico.

There on the playground, I saw Spanish take root in their spirits in a way it had not yet.  I saw both girls finally really get what it was all about. It was as if in those moments they really came to understand that they could have these playmates because of knowing Spanish, that they’d been able to connect with the community members because of knowing Spanish, that they could order their own food because of knowing Spanish, that they could have their coveted independence, because of knowing Spanish.  And it was then that I felt this gift that had been given to me by my mother got passed on to them, and I was able to now step back. 

The school day ended and Mik made sure to tell everyone she’d be back the next day.  She saw some of her classmates in town that afternoon and she informed us that the next day she wanted to go alone, no parents, no younger sister.  There we were on day two dropping her off at the gate, Oscar and her new friends encouraging her to go with them and she, literally, didn’t look back.

After I’d picked her up later that day we were talking with a woman from the town who asked us if we were going to move there permanently.  I sighed and said, “No, we can’t right now.”  Mikaela interrupted me, reaching up to put her hand on my hand. She looked at the woman and said, “Tal vez!!!” (maybe.)

It’s been 5 months since we returned from our trip. For now, she has not wished me away in hope of another mom and, for now, she’ll joyfully converse with me in Spanish, and for now, she exudes the same pride as she did walking through the streets of small towns in Mexico, engaging with others in her five-year-old Spanish. And, for now, this is all I could hope for.