Cada vez más used to Chile

I wrote this on my other blog, but I thought it might interest some of you too:)

Cada vez más used to Chile

Luz

A while back I expressed some rather frustrated and pessimistic thoughts on how my choice to raise O bilingual was being received by our community here... Today, all the seniors arrived back to campus (I live on the campus of the boarding school that my husband and I both teach at). They are so psyched to 'learn Spanish from O', and I have already, in the few short hours since they have been back, witnessed several non-Spanish speaking students gamely engage O with the few words they do know, and excitedly follow him around as he toddles and narrates the world around him.

¡Qué ilusión!

One of O's favorite words is Luz. He loves watching lights go on and off, and of course he loves trying to flick any switch he encounters in hopes it brightens (and then dims, and then brightens, and then dims...) the room. Today I heard a colleague (one of O's many 'aunties' on campus) explain to a group of students how she was learning so much from O, and that he had spent a good 10 minutes earlier in the afternoon gesturing and exclaiming 'luz!' until she finally connected that he wanted the lamps on.

All just to say, I'm back to feeling enthusiastic and optimistic about this whole project. And enthusiastic about the truly open, uninhibited community of students that make up this place.

Adelante, pues.

If you give a baby a boob...

I've been thinking about gender roles, feminism, and how the last seven months, I have found myself feeling anything but liberated, more of a martyr really.  It all goes back to the boob- it makes slightly more sense for a woman to stay home with the kids than a man because they have the breast milk.  So you stay home.  And soon, since you're the one staying home, you find yourself doing all of the chores.  So you feed your kid, take care of them all the time, learn all of their quirks, and do the housework.  Then because you know the kid's quirks, you end up being in charge even when your husband is home.  And you have the boob.  So then you are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and you're tired.  Oh, and then because you're a woman, you feel pressure to look good, even postpartum.  So you wake up every morning to run at 6am even though you had to feed five times last night.  And then you are really tired.  Because you only have one income, there is no money to get help, so it's just you with the kid.  And then you're a martyr, exactly what you were trying to avoid.

It is this incredible snowball effect that is hard for anyone to avoid, even a woman who thought she was liberated before she decided to have a kid.  I don't claim to have the answer, and given how much talk there is around this issue, it seems nobody does.  All I have are questions- how do I both raise my kid and feel fulfilled in my career?  How do I put into practice my ideas about a mindful, environmentally conscious lifestyle without feeling completely trapped by cloth diaper laundry cycles and homemade baby food?  How do I actually let go of control and let another person be in charge of my daughter?  How do two parents working full time still manage to dedicate time to their children?  If one person does not work full time, who will make the professional sacrifice and why?  

If you have it all figured out, please comment:)

Etiquette

We've been back in the States for just about two weeks now. We've moved into our new home on campus, and are slowly readjusting to the quiet and plenitude of the countryside. In the home, we continue to speak Spanish with Owen and his language is exploding. He picks up several new words each day, and is starting to string them together into simple sentences. "Coche cae" "Manzana come" "No baño no" or "Chau chau" are refrains that constantly echo through the rooms of our new house.

It all feels idyllic and I feel like supermom--bilingual baby, minority language dominant, plus I just baked some breads and apple crisp--until family or friends arrive.  Since we've been away so long (2 months is an eternity when you have a toddler...) we've been receiving lots of visitors to our semi-unpacked abode this past week. And none of them, almost none of them, speak Spanish (I think I mentioned this in an earlier post...). What do I do? I'm an old hand at code-switching, but what about Owen? I can feel our loved ones tensing up as I check in with O-- "¿Quieres que te cambie el pañal? ¿Tienes hambre? ¡Saluda al tío!"-- and they aren't quite sure what is going on. It's been making me reflect on language etiquette, on the power dynamics implicit in a multilingual situation, where (s)he who speaks the most languages gets to have their say while the rest try to keep tabs on what's going on. I don't want to cave and speak in English to make my (adult) guests feel less intimidated by this chattering two year old, but I also want people to feel comfortable and welcome in our home.

I need to keep mulling this over, trying different tactics to involve English-only speakers in my interactions with O, encouraging our visitors to engage with and without language. It's funny, I didn't expect the first big trial of bilingual parenting to be MY own sense of propriety or embarrassment inhibiting the project.

When in Chile, eat meat

I just started feeding my daughter solid foods last week.  Like any gringa mama, I cracked open "What to Expect In the First Year" and gave Elenita the foods recommended in the book one by one.  You're supposed to wait three days for each new food to make sure the kid is not allergic, which of course Chileans think is ridiculous, or "exagerada".  Anyway, I started with palta (avocado), then squash, apple, banana, and yogurt.

Today I went to my pediatrician and she halted the whole thing in its tracks.  First, she couldn't understand my feeding schedule, and she asked me if I was giving Elena "almuerzo".  "Almuerzo" is not simply lunch in English.  "Almuerzo" refers to a big cooked dish involving and centering around a hunk of meat.  So of course the answer was no.  Now Elena, at 6 months old, is on a Chilean diet- she is to eat stewed meat with vegetables for lunch everyday.  If I had a stronger opinion, I would go against the will of the pediatrician, but I figure when in Chile, do as the Chileans, and eat meat.

English plis

Now that I live in Chile, I only want to speak English.  When I lived in the U.S. I spoke Spanish at work, with my husband and with many of friends so this change is actually quite drastic.  Being constantly surrounded by a culture that threatens to wipe away my American identity makes me hold onto English with a tight grip.  English allows me to read or sing onomonopias to my daughter, like wibble wobble, splish splash, or hee haw.  English is the language of Raffi, Dr. Seuss, and Maisy books.  English is the language of caroling door to door, of sledding outside with my sister, of wiffle ball in the backyard.

English is endangered because Elena may not know it.  At this point, all my daughter does with her mouth is make buzzing sounds or shove random objects inside, but she really hasn't made any sounds yet.  Although she hears mostly English now, I will not be her only source of language for long.  Her first word will probably be in English, her first sentences will most definitely be in Spanish.  

Translanguaging

Cada semana me llega al inbox un resumen de lo más interesante que ha salido del blog SpanglishBaby. Este domingo encontré un post sobre Translanguaging, o sea el cruce de múltiples idiomas en una situación de contacto de lenguas cuando los hablantes son todos multilingues.

¡Nosotros somos translanguagers profesionales casi, en esta casa! Y sí, veo como aleja y incomoda hasta a nuestros más íntimos familiares y amigos cuando mezclamos idiomas y el español predomina. Hoy estuvieron de visita unos tíos de mi marido, hablan inglés y un poco de high school french, pero se animaron a comunicar con Owen en español. Como hemos estado en Argentina y Chile recién, y Owen justo en las últimas semanas empezó a hablar con palabras y frases coherentes, así que el nene sólo maneja el castellano. Pero estos tíos no se asustaron, se dieron cuenta (como muchos no pueden) que aunque hable español, todavía es un bebé, y no sabría si ellos no hablaban 'bien'. Estuvo muy muy lindo verlos imitarle al Owen, cuando pidió 'papas f'itas' ellos se animaron a preguntar '¿más papas f'itas, Owen?' y lo pasamos tranquilos todos con la confianza de entendernos tanto por las palabras mismas como por el cariño e intención que siempre traemos a los encuentros íntimos.