How can politicians worry about bilingualism in Los Angeles?????

Politicians and media people, those coming from the right, are concerned that minority parents are teaching their children too much Spanish, therefore, children never get to speak English.

Well, I have to say that they are dumb, dumb, dumb! Even if you want your child to be bilingual/biliterate, it's almost impossible to become bilingual unless you, as a parent, try super hard!

I can't find children's books in Spanish!!! All that's available has a deficit perspective, it's designed to teach children how to transfer skills from Spanish into English. Let me tell you my experience about what is supposed to be a state-of-the-art bookstore, Vroman's, in Pasadena. Vroman's has, practically, a full floor dedicated to children's books and instructional materials. I said to myself, WOW, it's going to be easy to find good materials in Spanish for Hannah. In my dreams! I went to the Spanish section and it was embarrasing! Only a bunch of bilingual dictionaries and practically nothing else.

Then I said to myself, let's go and check out the Alfaguara site. Alfaguara is owned by Santiallana so I thought that they would have lots of materials... Well, if you go to the Argentine Alfaguara site, then you can find a lot! You can find Graciela Montes and all of her books, you can find Maria Elena Walsh and all of her books and CDs. But if you go to the Alfaguara site in the US, all you can find is a bunch of books, which though well intentioned, are very limited. And they are mainly designed for school-age children. Of course, the Alfaguara site in Argentina has lots of interesting things. But unless you have your family bring things with them, then it's impossible to have access to those materials.

Finally, I said to myself, How about the Alma Flor Ada publications? So I went to her site and I found lots of things published for bilingual, bicultural children in the US. There is a lot of potential there. So we will keep trying.... BUt I can already see that it's not going to be easy. But we will do it!

Maybe I have to start writing my own children's books???? Why not?

In my next blog: The use of Motherese or teacher talk....



So my question for all the dumb politicians is: How can you be worried about children not knowing English? It's impossible NOT to learn English. If there are no materials in