The Baltimore Sun – Andrés Martinez
“Ten minutes into the soccer game, Sebastian’s cries of “here,” “behind you,” and “cross it” became cries of “aquí,” “atrás,” and “al centro.” I’d never heard so much Spanish pour out of my 10-year-old. There is nothing like a hunger for the ball. And nothing like full immersion in a foreign language. I brought Sebastian to San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico for weeks of Spanish and art classes. But mostly, I wanted him to soak up the atmosphere of his other country, the one where his dad was raised. I grew up in Mexico, in a split household — American mother, Mexican father. Two languages, two passports, two sets of cultural mores. I grew up synthesizing, comparing, navigating, blending mischievously. Toggling between two worlds is what experts in bilingualism call it. My parents did what I haven’t done adequately for my son — they forced me to speak the other language (in our case, English) at home to make us fully bilingual. My own son generally goes about his fourth-grade, suburban Maryland existence fairly confident he lives in the center of the universe, with little need to learn from the rest of the world.”(more)