It’s not that I’m obsessive. Well, maybe just a tad. As any other parent out there with my heart and soul I desire to provide my daughter the very best that I can.
I know firsthand the spiritual and emotional riches of being bilingual. Not only that, it is my ability to live in both worlds—the English-speaking world, where I’m already assimilated into its culture, history and customs; and the Spanish-speaking world with its beauty in language, traditions and history—that I am able to make a decent living as a bilingual communicator and translator.
When my daughter was born I was determined to have her not just be bilingual, in my mind that was a given, since her dad’s English is limited and my mother doesn’t speak the language. I wanted Valentina to speak more than just English and Spanish. I wanted her to be minimally trilingual. So Google and I became fast friends. At some point I remember landing at the website of a school in Dallas that said that by first grade the child’s education would be 85% in French, but the first three years of Pre-K would be 50% in English and 50% in French with one day dedicated to Spanish. Call me corny, but when I read that I wept. Had somebody asked me how I planned to raise a trilingual kid, I might have ended with a plan somewhat like that.
Now in terms of language I was not about to get picky. I would have gone with German, Italian or Japanese, but in my heart of hearts I so wanted French.
At that point in 2001 financially I was doing nicely. My little freelance translation gigs were steady and generous. So vey happily I enrolled Valentina at the Dallas International School. My only concern was that we were not completely potty trained, a requirement to start at DIS, since she was four months shy of turning three. Fortunately, as I recall, she only had a couple of “accidents” in those first weeks.
O, how I loved that navy blue jumper, white shirt and red necktie my little girl had to wear every day. I remember I bought her navy blue patent shoes and braided her pigtails that first day. Off she went sucking her thumb and carrying her humongous and empty hot pink backpack she selected at Grapevine Mills.
By second grade Valentina’s class made a field trip to Montreal for a French immersion week in March. I followed her along with two other mothers. We rented a chalet nearby. I wanted to know myself nearby in case something would happen that made mommy necessary. Fortunately, the trip went smoothly and Valentina had her experience in the winter cold of Canada.
By fifth grade, the trip was for two weeks to Paris. My husband and I traveled with her. The forty-eight contiguous United States and the Atlantic seemed too vast a distance between us and our darling girl. So for the first time, my stroke-broken body and I traveled with the kindest husband ever just so we could feel close to our daughter, and yes, I fell in love with Paris.
When middle school came around, my freelance activities had basically faded into nothing and the tuition, much more expensive now, became unsustainable. So we had to opt into our public school in the Lewisville Independent School District where she continues to thrive and has been very happy.
We have not given up on her being trilingual. After DIS she has been tutored by a Parisian law student. In my mind, this language has to stay. We had eight long and costly years invested in this, I just hope she will learn to appreciate and take advantage of her trilingual skills. I feel the world will be more welcoming to her. Who knows how many French-speaking and English-speaking countries are out there (I know the Spanish-speaking are about 22). Imagine what this could potentially offer any young adult able to communicate in either of these three languages...
You know, I use to read a lot about individuals who speak more than one language. It seems that in our first year our brain is wired to learn any language in the world and that our little and marvelous cerebral mass is totally plastic those first years of life to learn more than one. I honestly think it’s a disservice to our children that we don’t educate them to be bilingual at least, being especially that we still live in the most powerful nation on this Blue Planet of ours. Geographically and historically it seems to make sense our kids could grow up speaking English and Spanish, especially down here in the south,but it can also be English and Mandarin or English and Japanese. Whatever, dudes. It’s time we consider options aside from English. Hey wait a minute, me personally, I need for us to keep our status of English only. What would happen to little ole translators like "meself" if this should change? So, let’s say no to all languages.
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