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[quote=Anonymous]I immigrated to the US from a Spanish-speaking country as a young child. My parents spoke Spanish at home. I did go through a period where I would respond in English, but now I only speak to them in Spanish. Although I speak Spanish "fluently", I am definitely much more comfortable in English and am missing a lot of vocabulary in Spanish. There is a certain shame about it. I avoid saying things in Spanish that I don't know how to say. There is almost like an unspoken language barrier between me and my parents. These days a lot of Latinos call the kids that grow up here not speaking Spanish the "No sabo" kids (roughly translated as "I don't knows") which is I think is just awful. It is really, really hard to keep up a second language in the US even if both parents speak it, because your entire social life and schooling is in English.

My DH is from an Asian country, so we are a bicultural and biracial family. I knew from the start it would be hard to teach my kid Spanish, so we moved to an area with a dual language (Spanish) immersion school. I honestly haven't been super consistent with speaking Spanish at home. Having her in this school is motivating me to speak more Spanish with her, as she needs to understand Spanish to be successful in school. That being said I don't expect her to become fully bilingual, not even close. What I do appreciate is that she is interested in learning and enjoys it thanks to having it at school. That's the most important thing to me. I never want her to feel shame about her Spanish or feel she is deficient in some way (like I do).[/quote]

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