People are sometimes surprised to learn that I began my school years as a mostly monolingual, Spanish-speaking kid. I'm US-born, but my Cuban mother - and later our whole family as they arrived – spoke to me almost exclusively in Spanish in the hope that I would be bilingual. This was the 1960s, in the days before language support programs were common. So, when it was time for school, I traipsed off to kindergarten armed with only the anglo name she’d given me (Margaret) and the vocabulary skills I’d picked up from a show called Romper Room. A letter I wrote to my family in Cuba shortly after my uncle taught me how to write in Spanish. I was thinking about all that because I was the closing speaker last week for the Las Américas Academy's annual Biliterate Conference, where I presented on what language literacy looked like in my own family. Preparing for that talk got me thinking a lot about my whole relationship to language, as a Latina and now as an author. And, I was thrilled and honored to hear, in the Q & A that followed, that so many of the attendees shared deeply personal and sometimes painful experiences about their own journey with their identities and language. Whether or not someone is bilingual is historically tricky terrain for people who identify as Latino or Hispanic in this country, mostly because so many of us don’t speak or write it at all. In fact, according to…
April 28, 2015
DIA events rule my world this week
Ah, breakfast at home. I'm just back from Loudoun County Public Library in Northern Virginia, where I spoke at It's All Write, their annual short story writing contest for teens. With Bev and Wright Horton It's always amazing to me how many unexpected gifts are part of these visits. I got to see the work of young people coming up the ranks - always fun. This time around, too, I learned about how Loudoun has a book club for adults with developmental disabilities. (Guess what I'm interested in starting here in Richmond?) I met librarians who are secret playwrights and novelists. I met young people who want to study children's book illustration. And, of course, I had the honor of meeting Bev and Wright Horton, a former teacher and a geologist, who are the long time benefactors of the program that touches hundreds and hundreds of kids in their area. They do so in honor of their late son, James, who loved writing. "James would have loved this contest," Bev told me. Personal loss redirected into something positive for a community confirmed for me AGAIN that the literary arts - the stories of all of us - are a powerful force for connection and healing. So for all of that, thank you (camera-shy)Linda Holtslander for the invitation to Loudoun County and for the chance to spend time with the amazing people at Park View HS, Tuscarora HS, and the Rust Library. Writing at Park View HS! My Cuban friend -…
