Tag: Bilingual

My Bilingual Kid Doesn’t Want Your Attention

Having spent the majority of my adult life outside of the United States (mostly in small, homogeneous cities), I’ve gotten used to being the subject of conversation at the next table over. It happens pretty frequently in Vitoria. My husband and I speak in English so people assume I don’t understand their Portuguese freeing them to openly discuss me from two feet away. It happens most frequently with kids and teens, but a surprising number of adults don’t seem to realize that a person could understand both English and Portuguese. In Vitoria, we expats are like endangered wildlife. People know we’re around, but when actually spotted, locals take note.

I don’t mind. Until visitors arrive from another planet, one from another continent is about as alien as it gets for most people in Vitoria. I signed up for the attention when I decided to become an expat.

But my daughter didn’t.

A series of encounters at the park Sunday has, for the first time, made me consider my daughter’s multiculturalism a challenge, a thing she’ll have to learn to deal with.

It also has me weighing the importance of three influences on my daughter’s behavior: my parenting instincts v. my daughter’s personality v. the culture she is growing up in. I’m now asking which of these should win out in the event they’re incompatible.

Here’s what happened.

We arrived at the park just as a craft was beginning and hurried to the classroom. As materials were being handed out, one of the helpers overheard me speaking English and asked where we’re from. I answered, heard about how he’s going to Disney World soon, and then got the VIP crafting upgrade, as he hovered over my shoulder for the duration of the activity asking repeatedly (in English) if my daughter needed help. He was pleasant and wanted to practice his English. No problem.

Then we moved to the playground and while my daughter, the baby dragon, sought refuge in a playhouse from me, the evil sorceress, a girl and boy asked what language we were speaking. I answered, their eyes widened, and they ran off. A few minutes later they were back with more friends who all crowded into the playhouse to stare at my four-year-old, English speaker. My daughter tried to play with them in Portuguese, but the older girl turned to her friends and asked, “Who wants to learn English?” My daughter was not interested in playing teacher when there was sorceress to escape from, so she turned her back on them. They were kids and curious. Ok.

The most bizarre exchange happened as my daughter and I were waiting for my husband to bring the car. We were sword fighting with sticks, so I have no idea what these people heard exactly. “Argh!” “Ah, my leg! I’m bleeding!” But whatever they heard prompted the man to turn to his friend and say “Uma italiana!” I know I opened the door to this exchange by correcting him, but I can’t live in a world where people hear an English speaking American and think Italian.

I smiled and told him “Sou americana.” Their minds were blown. The woman nearly doubled-over laughing and the man’s eyes bugged out as if this was the first time either of them had considered the possibility of a person speaking more than one language. If I had turned invisible, I think they would have been less surprised. The woman sat down on the bench next to my daughter, and the two of them began peppering us with questions, the most notable one being “So you speak Portuguese & French?” They quickly zeroed in on my daughter and began directing their questions to her, clearly not believing she speaks Portuguese and is, in fact, Brazilian. When they asked her for her name, I stiffened. When they asked her for her daddy’s name, I cut them off, said “ciao” and in their wake, made it explicitly clear she was never to give her name or mommy’s or daddy’s name to anyone other than a police officer. The couple hadn’t meant but did cross a line when they asked for personal information from my kid.

My daughter’s final audience of the day came at the end of lunch. She and I were walking back to our table with a much-anticipated chocolate popsicle, and the table next to us began exclaiming to my husband. “Nossa que olhos lindas! Uma loirinha linda!” My daughter has blond hair and blue eyes, the genetic jackpot in Brazil. The entire family at the next table gushed compliments, while my husband played along and joked it was a good thing she took after her mom.

This all happened within two hours. Nothing was said or done out of malice. The people’s motivation ranged from innocent curiosity to sincere appreciation with a heavy dash of racism. Everything interaction was typical. Brazilian culture is open and friendly and community oriented. Strangers talk to each other here. It’s like being in South Georgia without the gnats and shotguns.

But my daughter doesn’t want an audience. My husband and have noticed it. Her teachers noted it in her school report. When the group of kids crowded around my daughter asking her to speak in English, she went silent. When the geographically challenged couple asked for her name, she clutched my arm and hid her face. My daughter doesn’t like being put on the spot. And that is exactly what every stranger who asks her to demonstrate her Portuguese or English is doing. When strangers stare at my daughter, they turn her into a spectacle no matter their intentions.

So what to do about it?

My husband immediately suggested we stop speaking English outside of the apartment. This would eliminate having to always explain that my kid is Brazilian and hearing about people’s Disney vacations, but I’m against it. My daughter is immersed in Portuguese Monday through Friday all day long at school. She needs as much English as possible on the weekend. We’d also limit her English vocabulary to the world of our apartment.

My gut reaction is to tell the spectators, politely but firmly, to go away. I’ll explain that my daughter is shy and since she is Brazilian, we don’t want her to feel singled out in her home. Please, save your questions for another bilingual who’s more comfortable in the spotlight.

The problem with this solution is that it’s extremely American. Like off the charts individualistic. Walls up. Family in. Strangers out. It’s honest. It’s blunt. It’s clear. It’s rude as hell. It’s all of those things. Just depends on your cultural reference. I recently saw an article titled “I Don’t Make My Kid Share” and thought that would never fly in Brazil. Valuing individual property rights over communal harmony would brand you and your kid the biggest jerks on the playground. Not all parenting strategies work equally well in all cultures.

She is Brazilian, living in Brazil, dealing with Brazilians. Shouldn’t I do my best to teach her to understand and navigate her own culture? Is it right to protect her feelings by shutting down people in a culture where small talk is viewed as courteous? Doesn’t she need to be able to cope with the extra attention if it’s going to be part of her reality?

I want to help my daughter balance culture and her personality, and I’m not sure what to say to prepare her for the inevitable questions that come when you are the only one. I grew up a solid member of the majority in everyway possible, but she is often usually the only bilingual, the only American. A little, blue-eyed, Brazilian girl speaking English here in Vitoria is going to make people stop in their tracks and comment.

My plan so far is to tell her she should never talk to strangers without mommy and daddy around. (Safety first.) When we are around, she has an absolute right to remain silent. She doesn’t have to play with or talk to anyone she doesn’t want to. However, I’ll explain people aren’t trying to be mean. They want to learn, and she has the power to teach them. People are curious about her languages and cultures, so when she’s ready, people will be very interested in what she has to say.

And that’s the best idea I’ve got for now.

December 1, 2015
My Daughter’s Bilingual. It’s not a big deal.

My Brazilian-American daughter listening to her anglophone Great-Grandmother read Curious George.

About a month ago, I was invited to be interviewed for a podcast with Marianna Du Bosq at Bilingual Avenue. She asked me to talk about raising my daughter bilingual in Portuguese and English, with English being the minority language. (Jargon alert! In the bilingual community, minority language is any language not spoken by the majority of people in the community.) I was flattered and excited. In preparation, I visited her site and pulled up previous podcasts. As I listened to the PhD experts and trilingual parents, the researchers and published authors, I began to suspect that I would be the least helpful person ever interviewed for Bilingual Avenue.

Well the interview is up, and I’m certain that I’m the least helpful guest ever.

Of all the issues that come with parenting my daughter, raising her bilingual is one of the last I think about. In terms of energy usage, reflecting on her bilingualism comes just after flossing her teeth and ahead of which hand she writes with.

I don’t have a favorite book on bilingualism. I don’t have tips or special strategies to share. I can’t list the names of prominent researchers in the field or site the latest journal article making waves. I don’t have a “biggest fear” or “primary concern”. I’m not visiting online forums and sharing my struggles with other parents.

Before my daughter was born I did buy two books on raising bilingual kids. I read enough to know the common strategies: One Parent One Language (each parent speaks his/her native language to the child) and Minority Language at Home (the child learns the majority language at school/in public and speaks the minority language with both parents at home). Our pre-birth strategy session went something like this:

Me: “Since she’s going to be getting Portuguese at school and with all her friends, we should probably speak English to her at home, right?”

My Husband: “Absolutely.”

And that was that. Marianna asked me during the interview how my Brazilian husband feels about speaking English to his daughter. Not to spoil the interview, but I considered revealing my suspicions that I married a robot. He speaks English fluently and wants his daughter to be fluent in both languages, thus the logical choice was to speak English at home. Period. I realize this story is not helpful for the majority of people who also consider feelings when making decisions. I personally would not be able to say “I love you” in Portuguese and feel it the way I do in English, but my husband didn’t give it a second thought.

It’s possible we would have talked about it more, but then my daughter was born seven weeks early. We spent a month in the NICU. She developed a severe food allergy that caused bloody stools until she was 8 months and left me, the breastfeeding mom, only able to eat fruits and vegetables handpicked by fairies and meat that hadn’t been cooked in anything remotely tasty. Her breastfeeding feeding schedule was every two hours, so I didn’t sleep for almost a year. She has severe separation anxiety which has allowed me one night off in over four years, and that night was such a disaster it will take years for everyone to recover enough to try again. When she started throwing tantrums, they included biting, scratching, spitting, kicking, and screaming until she lost her voice. Two years later, we’ve managed to reduce the tantrums to only screaming and throwing toys at doors instead of people. She refuses to try new foods. Iran is more flexible over nuclear policies than my daughter is on the subject of vegetables. And she has recently decided she is done with both school and sleeping.

Truly my daughter speaking two languages is the least of my concerns.

Her teachers report no problems with communication. She has lots of friends she speaks to in Portuguese. She enjoys speaking in English to my parents via Skype. She might have in total fewer words in English than a monolingual her age but so, what? I’m a native English speaker and still regularly have to look up English words I’ve never seen before. With every piece of writing, I learn new ways to use and manipulate my native language. Learning a language is a lifelong activity, not something you need mastered by 18. My kid can identify an armadillo in both English and Portuguese. I’m not worried.

When I do consider her bilingualism and her place in the world as a bilingual, I remember that the idea a child should only have one native language or risk never being fluent in any has been totally and completely debunked. Linguists estimate 75% of the world’s population speaks more than one language and about 20% of the U.S. population. She’s far from alone in her bilingualism. In fact, compared to the many families passing on three or even four languages, our two-language family is pretty straightforward.

I think about these facts for two minutes and then go back to finding a way to make applying sunscreen less traumatic. Which is why, I’m the absolute last parent to ask about raising a bilingual child.

Because when someone says “You’re raising her bilingual. How’s that going?” I say, “Fine. Hey, do you have any suggestions for getting her to not hate carrots?”

*Here is the link to my interview with Marianna at Bilingual Avenue. Episode 87: Learning Language from our Kids with Brynn Barineau

If you have any questions or doubts about raising multilingual kids, Bilingual Avenue is a great resource!!

September 21, 2015
The Perks of Not Speaking the Language

Or don’t…depending on the situation.

I have a secret to confess. I speak Portuguese. Please, don’t tell my mother-in-law.

I don’t speak Portuguese fluently. Nothing as impressive as that. I speak Portuguese like a 96-year-old suffering from extreme dementia. My sentences are punctuated by gestures and facial expression to stand-in for words I’ve forgotten, and my responses to questions sometimes have nothing to do with what was actually asked.

“Brynn, what did you do this weekend?”

“No, I don’t like mangoes.”

But more often than not, I can successfully converse, arrange appointments, and get the hair cut and color I actually want. (The correct hair color was something I mistakenly thought I could get after only recently arriving in Brazil with minimal Portuguese.)

While life is greatly improved now that I don’t consistently confuse Monday and Tuesday, there are times when I play the clueless foreigner card without hesitation. I should probably feel bad for perpetuating the ignorant, monolingual American stereotype, but it’s such an effective way to avoid all those tedious conversations that suck up patience and sanity: the chatty person with what sounds like TB at the doctor’s office, the perfume-drenched, close-talking lady from upstairs, all phone solicitors.

I always answer my phone with a thick, American, “Hello.” It’s the perfect screen. Family and friends obviously know where I’m from and aren’t thrown by it. Only salespeople freeze up and give themselves away with a long pause as they try to figure out what to do next. Some hang up. Some ask if they can speak to my husband. Others plow doggedly ahead with their scripts. I cut them all off and say sweetly in English, “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t speak Portuguese. Goodbye.” Click. Conversation over. The salesperson doesn’t feel bad about losing someone they couldn’t talk to. I’m back to watching John Oliver on YouTube. Win-win.

I first employed this trick in Morocco. Describing the young men in Morocco as persistent is like calling the Kardashians’ lifestyle “comfortable.” Tired of being unable to walk two blocks without being asked to dinner and then asked why I was refusing, I answered one man with Croatian song lyrics. Why Croatian? Because in almost every country other than the US, even misogynist assholes can speak more than one language. But with only four million Croatians in the world, I was pretty confident Croatian would not be one of his languages. I was right. The guy stopped talking to me after a couple sentences. He did still follow me all the way back to my hotel, but stalking is way less annoying when done in silence.

Playing dumb also helps avoid awkward conversations with in-laws and before you judge, just imagine Thanksgiving with your in-laws. What if you could avoid awkward conversations about politics or global-warming or when your daughter is getting baptized by simply fumbling the language? “Oh, what? When is she getting her booster shots? Next month.” Wouldn’t everyone be happier if there was just a lot of smiling and complementing of the food?

So before you get annoyed with the woman in the elevator for not speaking your language, check if you’re wearing deodorant, have brushed your teeth recently, and are saying something more interesting than the silence. Then be careful what you mumble out loud. There’s a chance she’s faking it.

Find more fun adventures from life abroad!

April 20, 2015