Jun 26, 2007

My reasons... written by someone else

Why I'm trying really hard to be bilingual and want my children to be bilingual?

Why I don't like (and I mean I REALLY don't like) Tom Tancredo or Lou Dobbs?

Why I regret my Dad didn't taught me to speak Czech as he does?

Why I regret I didn't attend the local school when I lived in Libya —yep, right there, in the middle of the Sahara desert— so I could have been learning Arabic, a wider one that saying: "malelé" and "Sal-al-Malecum"?

Why I've been encouraging MDH to speak in Russian to Nicolás, so he could improve his chances to learn a third language?

Why, if I still live in Colorado when Nicolás start school, he won't be attending the local school district that recently banned all forms of bilingual education, switching to spend their budget money in their tops administrators' salaries instead of teachers and a cultural diverse curriculum?

Why I've loved so much the challenges I've faced during the almost three years I've worked in a Spanish newspaper in a profoundly divided community; where I even had to explain to some coworkers, how I can read Newsweek and a José Martí article printed from the Internet, at the same time, in my lunch breaks?

Carlos Alberto Montaner just wrote it for me.

Here, he explained the reasons with such clarity, I don't even need to quote him.

And he was the one who taught me, during my first interview for a project at J-School, that being able to read, speak and write English is crucial for any journalist now days, in order to keep up with the latest information on topics such as technology and politics.

Montaner was SO right.

Now, I see it is also crucial to keep up with the things that not-so-open-minded people are talking about us; the ones that encourage and support bilingualism, diversity and bicultural (or more) backgrounds.

2 comments:

Cuba Companioni said...

oye cubanita,i thought i was the only cuban blogger in colorado. my name is roberto companioni and i happen to be a cousin of val at babalu. my link is there as well, which is where i just saw yours. anyway maybe we can chat one day i live in aurora but have been known to take a road trip or two. my site is www.cubacompanioni.blogspot.com
email me at
rj@cubacompanioni.com

hope to hear from you ciao roberto

Anonymous said...

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