Quotes About Biculturalism

Carmen's first language is Spanish. I only speak Spanish with her... and with Alec she is smart enough to know that she needs to switch to English.

At the root of Spanglish is a very universal state of being. It is a dis placement from one place, home, to another place, home, in which feels at home in both places, Yet at home in neither place. It is a kind of banging-one's-head-against-the-wall state, and the only choice you have left is to embrace the transitory (read transnatiknal) state of in-between.

I'm born and raised in Mexico. I only spent eight months in the States, but definitely English is a really big part of my life, and I love it. Thank God my mom put me in American school because I'm able to be working in the States, and it opens a lot more doors being half and not being only one. It's cool because I get to turn it on and off.

I think for the most part people are proud of the bicultural foundation New Zealand is built on and the fact that we are a multicultural society.

My American and Japanese personalities are distinct, and I carry myself differently depending on which language I'm using and which mode I'm in.

I'm just trying the American dream. To work here in the U.S., you have to commit and be here. For many years, it was back and forth, back and forth, and it didn't work. But I'm always open to working in Spanish.

Now I know Hindi, and I can read and write Hindi, but the problem is that I can't improvise when I am acting because I think in English, so I have to translate my thinking from English to Hindi, and therefore, I speak slowly.

A pesar de que tiene dos lenguas, el bilingüe habla como si siempre le faltara algo, en permanente estado de necesidad.

I think for the most part people are proud of the bicultural foundation New Zealand is built on and the fact that we are a multicultural society.

I try to do it in both languages: English and Spanish. But sometimes I just Tweet in Spanish.

What's always a challenge for me is that my Spanish is not the level of my English. Nor do I read in Spanish the way I read in English.

Writing in another language reactivates the grief of being between two worlds, of being on the outside. Of feeling alone and excluded.

It is a sore point, because you do have advantages if you have access to more than one language. You also have problems, because on bad days you don't trust yourself, either in your first or your second language, and so you feel like a complete halfwit.

Every American child should grow up knowing a second language, preferably English.