Reclaiming Your Family’s Heritage Language, Even if Your Elders Never Taught You

In the United States, descendants of immigrants often lose their heritage languages. But now many of them, especially those with roots in Latin America, are working to reclaim Spanish, according to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times. The process can be fraught since many weren’t exposed to the language as children and struggle to learn it as adults. Some have been shamed for not being fluent in their heritage language while the American education system and society has historically pushed English fluency over multilingualism. We’ll discuss why more people are diving into their heritage languages and hear about your experiences with trying to learn your mother, or grandmother’s tongue.

Guests:

Karen Garcia, reporter on the Utility Journalism team, Los Angeles Times; author of the recent article, "How second- and third-generation Latinos are reclaiming the Spanish language"

Veronica Benavides, founder and CEO, The Language Preservation Project - a movement to reverse the trend of language loss across the generations

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