Learning Spanish Makes You a Model in the Community

When I tell people that I teach Spanish for educators, most people think the benefit of the class is learning some basic language skills. Done, and done.  

And that’s how I thought about it in the beginning, too. But after teaching a few different courses, I have started to see that learning Spanish skills is the obvious benefit, but not the only one or even the most important one.

I have come to see that when staff are able to speak Spanish directly with families, they are able to build trust and connection in a way that is hard to do when the only communication they ever have is through a third party interpreter. They also build empathy for all multilingual families as they gain experience in learning a new language. Finally, they become allies in making sure multilingual families have equitable access to programming and services; they join the group that says, “Hey, have we thought about interpreters for this event?” or “Is someone making sure these permission slips are getting translated?”
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But there's one more thing that is powerful about educators learning Spanish. And that is what today’s tip is all about.

Spanish Connections Tip

Invite parents to speak to you (or if not you, your staff who are learning Spanish) with the use of a visual that can be hung or placed on a desk.

This visual becomes not only an advertisement that Spanish is welcome and included in the space, but that Spanish and Spanish-speakers are an asset to the community. It transforms parents and caregivers from being only receivers of language service into providers of language service in a mutual endeavor.

The Story

I have a student in first grade who cannot speak directly with or understand his mom: she speaks Spanish only, and he speaks and understands English only. His sixth grade sister acts as interpreter at home. He recently said to me, "I wish I had an English mom". This breaks my heart! While this is an extreme example, language loss across generations is more common than most realize.

I’ve been researching why fewer and fewer U.S. born Latinos are fluent speakers of Spanish, and why the language is disappearing across generations faster than in other language communities. I had my own speculations as to why that might be, but was interested in what others said about it. While there is no one reason, there is one that stands out to me as something we, as educators, can do something about no matter what state we live in, no matter what the local politics, no matter what kind of bilingual program our school does (or does not) offer.

In a 2022 article in USA Today, Lourdes Torres (a professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at DePaul University) was quoted as saying “Spanish can be exceptionally stigmatized in certain parts of the country, and linked, because of political discourses, to toxic identities, identities that are constructed as criminal… First generation parents, for example, suffer a lot when they get here because they don't speak English or they don't speak English well,” said Torres... “And they don’t want the same thing for their kids. Instead of promoting bilingualism, often, parents— to save their own kids from the agony that they had, the discrimination that they felt because of the language— they push them to just learn English.”

The article continues, “The loss of Spanish is not due to an individual problem of Latinos not wanting to learn or maintain the language but rather the 'really hostile context in the U.S. against other languages, especially Spanish and indigenous languages, languages that aren't considered prestigious, and the people who speak it,’ Torres said.”

That is where educators learning Spanish comes in. Will it change everything? No. No one action ever can.

But might it change something for someone? I think it could.

If I am a parent who immigrated from Honduras, for example, and I find that my child’s school both offers consistent and reliable language access and there are multiple people in the building who are making an effort to learn and speak Spanish with me, might it change how I experience life as a Spanish-speaker in the United States? Probably at school, it will. Will it change how I frame bilingualism to my child? It might.

If I am an educator learning practical Spanish, and not only using it with kids and families, but inviting them to be a part of my language journey, might I play some small part to shift their experience of bilingualism in the school community? I might.

Is that enough of a reason to embark on some language learning that also brings me joy and allows me to have a genuine exchange with a parent, or a newly arrived student? I think for both of us, it is.

In the same USA Today article, Laura Muñoz (asst. Professor of history and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska) shared, “We assume that this failure to maintain the language has something to do with us – with the way that we were raised, with the inability of our parents to succeed at teaching Spanish – when in fact there are so many other pressures coming at both the parents and the children,” Muñoz said. "When I think about Spanish language loss, the big word is lástima.” (Lástima means "a shame".)

Since the blame does not actually lie with parents, let’s reclaim the power of our role as educators and enormous influences on our children’s destinies by modeling something different than what the broader forces are doing.
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So, while translation and interpretation is critical to respecting the civil rights of families, learning Spanish has a part to play in changing the environment our students and their families find themselves in, in such a way that might support language preservation and a connection to their heritage.

Spanish Call to Action

Download this printable for your staff who are learning Spanish. They can print it and fold it on the dotted lines and prop it on their desks where families can see it!

If you have multiple languages, they can display it next to this resource (publicly available on the internet, but I am not sure who originally made it), to notify families of their right to an interpreter and allow them to indicate their preferred language.

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