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26th February 2024
Speaking Spanish Was the Heartbeat of My Home Until My Parents Died
Growing up, Spanish was the heartbeat of my home. I was born in Union City, New Jersey, dubbed Havana on the Hudson, to much older Cuban exile parents who made it their mission to ensure I was fluent in their native tongue, something they took pride in and wanted to impart to me.
Since there were few, if any, children’s books in my parents’ native tongue at local bookstores in the 1980s and ’90s, they instead brought home El Diario La Prensa, and other newspapers as they parsed through stories about death, taxes, and other gloomy topics to find the most kid-friendly articles I could practice reading. This became part of my language learning education.