Won’t Your Spanish Hurt Their English? – Spanish, of all languages, is nearly missing from the landscape of heritage language schools around the city, writes a Los Angeles parent struggling to bring up bilingual children.

“I was standing in line at a grocery store in Pasadena with my two boys, who were restless and causing a little havoc. I told them to settle down. Diego and Pablo ignored me, but I did get the attention of a woman standing in line. She was concerned not about my boys behavior, but about my speaking to them in Spanish.

Wouldnt it affect their English? she asked.

I never worry about my childrens English because it is too prevalent in their lives for them to lose it. Diego, our first, communicated with my wife, Vivian, and me only in Spanish until he was two, and his first word was agua instead of water. He still understands the language easily. But since starting preschool, hes battled with us to speak or write it.”

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