foreignmama

Stuff White People Like Got me Laughing Out Loud

Thanks to Alltop, today I found the best reason to LOL my lungs open. A blog devoted to "stuff that white people like" has that ability to state the obvious truisms that everyone might notice but no one ever took the time to point out. Where I come from, we believe the the biggest truths lie within the best jokes.

His Full List of Stuff White People Like includes "Being Offended", "The Ivy League", "Bumper Stickers", "Outdoor Performance Clothes" and "The Idea of Soccer". The explanations are flat out hilarious (me, as a white person in the skin but an original Latina can relate very well to his perspective - how many times walking at the Marina in San Francisco I experienced the short lived feeling of being accepted, to only seconds later be denounced by my heavy accent and my swinging hips - and quickly be dismissed, sometimes with a measuring question: "Oh, I see you have an accent! Are you French?"). Sometimes I actually lie and say "Mais oui!" I gain the respect back immediately. And then I see the previous acceptance, which had quickly turned into suspicion, become admiration. Bien sûr!

His number 78 in the list, Multilingual Children, is so true. And if you can't afford The French School, my city has plenty of options for linguistic adventurous parents. And the so called white people are grabbing them by the horns. I have been visiting Spanish Immersion schools at the San Francisco Public School district, and the concern is everywhere: only-English-speaking children are outnumbering the kids that actually bring Spanish from home in enrollment, thus forcing school principals to revise their strategies. The original curriculum, which was planned to ease native speakers of Spanish into becoming fluent in English without losing their original language now has to become a Second Language learning system.

And as an additional option in the list of the even more adventurous parents with multi linguistic ambitions, just in case they don't get into the Spanish immersion ones? Chinese immersion schools (good luck for the kids...). As a principal told me, "we need more Spanish speakers in our Spanish immersion program!" I wonder how this babel generation will turn out. And I am very curious and hopeful for the outcome.

Should You Let Your Child Quit? (hint: hell no)

I've just received a GreatSchools newsletter where the main discussion was "Press On or Give Up: Should You Let Your Child Quit?" - the very common issue of kids getting sick and tired of ballet, karate, soccer, violin and so on, and how to keep them engaged. The article eventually  concludes that "At some point, you may just have to let them quit". Foreign Mama says: "Well, that's for quitters." Not with foreign languages, baby. In this arena, you've got the upper hand.

Kids may refuse to speak to you back, but as long as you keep talking to them, there is nothing they can do but learn. And if they are stubborn (like my son), "No, I don't want to speak Portuguese" or my neighbors' kid, "I just speak Spanish with abuelita or when we go to Mexico", all those excuses will only make you smile and laugh. Because in the morning, he wakes up and asks "Mamãe, I want mingau!" (Mommy, I want oatmeal). They don't know better. You are the care taker, the main source, the mothership (or the fathership, guys I did not forget about you). They will absorb like a sponge everything you give to them. Even if they don't talk back, they are registering and saving it all in their little empty and eager hard drives. Speaking a foreign language to them when they are as little as zero and as old as twelve will work like a 401k retirement plan: the earlier you start and the more consistent you are, the bigger value you will reap at the end. Like when they take College level Spanish at High School. Or when they are undergrads and become the most popular kids in the spring break at Puerto Vallarta just because they can get by. Or when they are hired for a job due to that little extra "fluency in a foreign language" detail in their Résumé...

So keep depositing those little language dollars in their heads. Your effort will have a big pay back, even if much later.