As you know, I try my best to raise my children in a bilingual environment. I speak Spanish to them as much as possible, as do my parents, we sing songs in Spanish, read Spanish or bilingual books, and sometimes, we also watch cartoons in Spanish. My husband is very supportive in this effort and will point out new Spanish shows to us when he finds out about them and tries his best to repeat the Spanish spoken. It was actually him, who first introduced our daughter to El Perro y El Gato.

If I remember correctly, we were staying at a hotel and as he was browsing the channels, he stumbled upon HBO Latino, which was showing cartoons that morning. As I walk out of the shower, my baby girl screams out to me, “Mami, look! Perro y Gato! In Spanish!” She loves to point out when music, shows, books, etc., use Spanish. We watched the rest of the show wishing that we were HBO subscribers at home, since we had just found a new, funny, cute, bilingual show. Check out this behind-the-scenes look to hear from the show’s creators, animators, and even the voices of El Perro y El Gato.

El Perro y El Gato premiered a new episode titled, “Sigue Soñando / Keep On Dreaming,” on Thursday, September 15, the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month. We were sent a sneak peek DVD of the new episode, which of course, was enjoyed by all. The main characters of El Perro y El Gato are an overexcited orange dog (El Perro) and his laid-back, always hungry friend, a purple cat (El Gato). To keep our celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month going, today we have a 4-DVD set of El Perro y El Gato to give away to you!

ModernMami™.com Reader Giveaway

We want you to enjoy El Perro y El Gato with your children, so we’re giving away a 4-DVD set of the show, as pictured above!

How to Enter

Required entry: If you’d like to enter this contest for a 4-DVD set of El Perro y El Gato, simply leave a comment below sharing why watching bilingual shows is important to you and your family.

Extra entries (optional):
Each of the following will count as 1 extra entry. You’ll need to leave a separate comment for each entry.

1. Follow @modernmami on Twitter.
2. Tweet the following: Encourage #bilingual learning at home. Enter to win El Perro y El Gato DVDs from @modernmami! http://bit.ly/mPSylQ #giveaway #contest
3. Receive post updates by subscribing to our RSS feed. You can do so either via email or through a RSS reader. Leave a comment saying you did so or are already a subscriber.
4. Subscribe on friendfeed and leave a comment with your friendfeed ID.
5. Write a blog post on your own blog sharing the details of this contest. Be sure to include a link back to this post. Leave a comment with your post link.

All entries must be in by Friday, October 14, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. You must be 18 or older and a U.S. resident. No purchase necessary. Remember to leave a separate comment for each entry. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.) Winner will have 48 hours to respond and claim prize, otherwise a new winner will be chosen.

El Perro y El Gato Photos and Video Provided and Used with Permission

Custom Hispanic Heritage Banner by Justin Edwards
and © ModernMami.com

“Es poca mujer.” These were words I heard at various points growing up and that have stuck with me. Literally it means “she’s not much of a woman,” but the phrase is used to mean a woman is not strong enough or cannot handle a situation. For example, if a woman is unable to handle her responsibilities as a mother, wife, and home manager, then some might say, “es poca mujer.”

The phrase has never been said about me, at least not to my face. I’ve heard it said by my mom, mostly, but also other family members in reference to other women we know. In all honesty, it seems like such a judgmental and harsh phrase to me. Of course, it goes back to something I’ve written about before – how in our Latino culture, women and moms especially, are somewhat expected to be super women. The result of not being able to balance it all is to be called out as “not good enough.”

Do you know how often I could be called “poca mujer” based on that definition? I try hard to get many things done and meet a lot of self-imposed expectations, but I would cringe if someone ever told me it wasn’t good enough. I can only do the best I can and really, who besides me can truly know what a successful day entails? Success for our family is probably different than it is for yours. So, for someone else to call me “poca mujer,” or to call anyone that, seems a bit cruel.

To me, saying “es poca mujer” about a woman is equivalent to calling her weak. And to call a woman weak because she is not able to keep up with so many aspects of her life – mainly those involving caring for others – well, it’s just wrong, isn’t it?

Are you familiar with the phrase? What are your thoughts on how it’s used?

I’ve been asked a difficult question.

I was asked to write about what it means to me to be a Latina.

To be honest, I had never really given it much thought until now.

I mean, do people normally go around thinking, “What does it mean to me to be a woman?” Or a man? Or do Americans think to themselves, “What does it mean to me to be American?”

It’s just who you are. It’s you. To me, it’s much the same.

Being Latina is a large part of my identity. To be specific, being Puerto Rican is really a major influence in who I am.

I was born in Puerto Rico, but we moved to Florida when I was 8 years old. Although I’ve spent many more years in Florida than I did in Puerto Rico, my parents made sure to maintain our culture in our house. I was raised pretty much the same way I would have had we stayed in Puerto Rico. (Ok, like 90% since obviously there are outside influences from school, friends, etc.) But, my parents spoke Spanish in the house (and still do), we listened to Spanish music, we ate Puerto Rican food, and I was taught values and traditions that are important to our culture.

All of those things helped to make me who I am. However, being Latina is not just a matter of “I listen to Spanish music,” or “I eat rice and beans.” That is not what makes me Latina.

To me, it’s more about the overall culture, values, traditions, and beliefs. It’s about understanding why family is so important to us. Or understanding why my parents believed that as the youngest sibling and the only girl, I couldn’t do some of the same things my brothers did. And, how about the fact that now that I’m older and my parents are aging, I must understand why my father prefers to speak with my brother (who lives in Milwaukee) about his health issues than with me who lives 10 minutes away?

These may seem like trivial points, but if you understand the way our culture operates and the overall mentality, it’s easier to understand why these things happen the way they do.

So, what does it mean to me to be Latina? It means a rich culture, deep values, traditions, pride, and an overall appreciation for yourself and your family.

What does it mean to you?

Disclosure: I received Little Pim products for review purposes. No other compensation received.

By now you know that my husband and I have committed to raising bilingual children. Coming from different cultures ourselves, our daughter has the benefit of growing up multicultural and learning two languages – English and Spanish. Though my first language was Spanish, having moved to Florida at a young age and living here the majority of my life, has resulted in me speaking mostly Spanglish rather than true Spanish. I often have to force myself to think of the words in order to hold a Spanish-only conversation. That is why I love to compensate speaking Spanish around the house with Spanish books, shows, games, and music, so that my baby girl can be exposed to Spanish as much as possible.

I’ve had the pleasure of receiving some additional Little Pim products to add to the Little Pim Spanish DVD I had previously received and reviewed. This time, I was able to review the Little Pim Spanish Word and Phrase Cards, Little Pim Spanish Bop CD, and the new Little Pim Word Bag app for the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards

With 60 cards to choose from, my daughter has fun picking out a few cards at random and making up a story about Little Pim. I love this for two reasons: 1) She’s not just staring at the card and words and repeating them one after the other. It’s much more interactive, which helps (in my opinion) her learn the word or phrase better. 2) Making up stories is a great way to encourage imaginative play!

We take out these cards a few at a time and either make up stories or just review how to say the word/phrase in Spanish. But, we’re usually making up stories – it’s much more fun!

Little Pim Spanish Bop CD

This CD has 15 songs from artists like Dan Zanes and Milkshake. There are three songs that are repeated in English at the end and all the lyrics for each song are included in the pamphlet in both Spanish and English. My daughter especially liked “Tía Monica” and its merengue rhythm, but other fun songs include “Clap Clap Clap” and “Las Comidas.” Of course, a personal favorite of mine is “El Coquí” since Coquís are native to Puerto Rico (no bias whatsoever here).

Little Pim Word Bag iPhone/iPod Touch App

Little Pim’s Word Bag allows your child to play in either Spanish or French. We enjoyed playing with this app on our iPod Touch and I love how it matches the style and feel of the DVD. Using the app, my daughter was able to easily find what words were in Little Pim’s word bag. It’s easy for her to use her finger to “take” the words out of his bag, hear and see the word, and laugh along with Little Pim.

Image from AppShopper

However, I think that it would have been much more cool to be able to “match” the words to the picture and make it a bit more interactive and game-like. It would have been fun to play a game and perhaps help Little Pim find his way through a story scenario by finding the words he needs. Or something like that anyway. Clearly, I’m not a game designer; I just think an interactive element to the app might make it even more fun than it already is.

Where to Purchase

You can purchase the Word and Phrase Cards and the Spanish Bop CD directly from the Little Pim site for $14.95 each or you can also find them on Amazon for the same price (in case you have Amazon gift cards you want to use).

• Purchase Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards on Amazon for $14.95
• Purchase Little Pim Spanish Bop CD on Amazon for $14.95

You can buy the Little Pim Word Bag iPhone App for $1.99 in the iTunes App Store.

Giveaway

One of you will win a set of the Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards and the Spanish Bop CD.

How to Enter

If you’d like to enter this contest for a Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards and Spanish Bop CD, simply leave a comment below and tell us which product you think your kids will enjoy from the Little Pim site.

For extra entries:

1. Tweet about this contest with a link back to this post and include @modernmami in your tweet. You must leave a separate comment with a link to your tweet for your entry to count.
2. Follow @Little_Pim on twitter and tweet the following: “@little_pim Hola Little Pim! Following from @modernmami for the #modernmami contest!“
3. Become a fan of ModernMami.com on Facebook and leave a comment with your Facebook name.
4. Subscribe to this blog via email and leave a comment with the email you used to subscribe. (You can use the email field to do this instead of putting your email in the comment if you prefer.)
5. Subscribe on friendfeed and leave a comment with your friendfeed ID.
6. Write a blog post on your own blog sharing with your readers your favorite Little Pim product you found on the Little Pim site. Make sure to link back to this contest page in your post. Leave a comment with your post link.

All entries must be in by Thursday, March 11 at 11:59 pm EST. Make sure to leave a separate comment for each entry. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.)

While reading the memoir of former first female CEO of IBM, Carly Fiorina, Tough Choices, I learned her family philosophy: What you are is God’s gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God. How perfect and sublime. This is something that is written in the souls of driven people. Being one such person, it spoke to me directly as the truth I had been living, though never bothered to put words to. Then as I thought about it more and how it applies to my life, the more it expanded, unfolded, and began to demonstrate exactly the spaces it takes up in my life.

I have always told each of my children that they were gifts to me from God. I do not own them, but I have been charged with the care of these gifts for in time my gifts will leave my side. I have a heart for each of my gifts, that grows with each day and each breath they take. These are the words of love I whisper into their ears from time to time. It is the best way I can manage to explain my love for them. And now with this new revelation, I have discovered that while God has gifted my children their individual talents, temperaments and struggles, I am co-gifter as well. As mother I must bestow my children with as many gifts as possible, so that in turn, that gift to God they create with their lives and selves is that much more expressive of the love that was invested and created.

When I speak to my children in Spanish, the language is not the only gift I give them. The culture that I can filter through to their generation, the awareness of an ancestral presence in their lives and the spiritual beliefs that have cradled me in good times and bad are all the gifts that I pass on to them. Each of my children receives these gifts in a different manner, and as a mother, I must stand back allow them the space to create their own unique gift to God from them. My gift is getting to watch.

A while back, I posted a list of 10 Blogs Worth Reading. A few more were added in the comments section of that post from readers.

Since then, I’ve come across many new blogs, but specifically, many that are written by fellow Latinos and Latinas. I’ve also connected with many Latinos on twitter and even spoke at the recent Latinos in Social Media conference held in Orlando.

I feel it’s only right to give some love today and highlight some new blogs that you may want to check out.

In no particular order…

10 Blogs Owned by Latino Bloggers and Latina Bloggers Worth Reading

1. Mami’s Time Out
2. Sofrito for Your Soul
3. Tiki Tiki Blog
4. SpanglishBaby
5. NY City Mama
6. Orlando Sentinel Hispanosphere
7. Speak Hispanic?
8. Latin Baby Book Club
9. Latina on a Mission
10. Mama Latina Tips

I hope you find some new friends in exploring their blogs. Let me know in the comments below of any others you enjoy reading! I know there’s many more out there.

Most of you already know that we are a bi-cultural family and I myself am bilingual. As such, my husband and I decided that we would make an effort to raise our children bilingually so they could learn both English and Spanish. So far, our daughter is doing a great job of acquiring both languages and most important of all, actually showing an interest in Spanish, which is the minority language.

It helps that my parents are a big part of her life, since they both speak Spanish more often than I do. Because I speak English to my husband, spoke English in the workplace, and speak English for 95% of each day, it gets a little difficult sometimes for me to “switch” my brain and speak Spanish to my daughter. I have to remind myself. So, any little help I can get is useful in not just exposing her to Spanish, but also reminding me to do so. Which is why I love bilingual books, TV programs, and other toys.

When I was contacted by Smart Play about their new bilingual toy line, Ingenio, I was highly interested in reviewing their products. As the email I received said, “there are very few affordable toys/games available for parents who want their children to be bilingual.” In my experience when shopping for baby girl, this has been true. Their products fill this need since 8 out of the 10 products they have so far cost less than $12.99. All ten products are designed for children 3-8 years old, which is perfect for my baby girl.

We received the Animal Learning Puzzle and the Spellable Puzzle Card Game. I was looking forward to playing the Spellable game with baby girl because it allows you to spell 3 letter words in English and Spanish. I thought this would be a great way to step up her learning and go beyond just the alphabet and on to forming words and promoting word recognition. Like any preschooler, she was super excited at the beginning, but after about 10 words or so, her focus began to fade. Since I don’t want to be a drill sergeant and “force” learning on her, but rather have it be a natural part of her playing and surroundings, I followed her cue and put away the game for another time.

But, just in that short period of time, I saw a few things that I liked about this product:

• Each letter is color coded; consonants are green & vowels are purple. I like this because you can add variety to the game by sorting the letters. Now she’s not just working on phonics, but also classifying items.
• Every letter card has a picture on the back that doubles for a word in English AND Spanish. So, you have pictures of juice/jugo for J and lamp/lampara for L, etc. Even the hard letters like Q work; Q has a quesadilla on the back.
• The spelling cards are also color coded; blue for English and red for Spanish. This helped my daughter know which language to use when trying to spell the word.

The animal puzzle was also fun to play with and has the name of each animal printed in both English and Spanish. It also displays the words for the surroundings in both languages. For example, tree/árbol and mountain/montaña. It’s a very cute puzzle and my daughter enjoyed teaching her dad the names of the animals in Spanish when they later put it together without me.

Giveaway

You too have a chance at trying out some Ingenio products! One of you can win a set of the Alphabet cards along with the Spellable Puzzle Card Game. The winner will receive both products.

How to Enter

1. If you’d like to enter this contest, simply leave a comment below and let me know if you already promote a bilingual home or why you would like to expose your child to another language.
2. For an extra entry, you can tweet about this contest with a link back to this post and include @modernmami in your tweet. You must leave a separate comment with a link to your tweet for your entry to count.

All entries must be in by Sunday, November 22nd at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.)

****This post was originally posted in March 2009 at Family Eden. Since that blog is no longer active, I wanted to share with you.****

I’ve been asked a difficult question.

I was asked to write about what it means to me to be a Latina.

To be honest, I’ve never really given it much thought.

I mean, do people normally go around thinking, “What does it mean to me to be a woman?” Or a man? Or do Americans think to themselves, “What does it mean to me to be American?”

It’s just who you are. It’s you.

To me, it’s much the same.

Being Latina is a large part of my identity. To be specific, being Puerto Rican is really a major influence in who I am.

I was born in Puerto Rico, but we moved to Florida when I was 8 years old. Although I’ve spent many more years in Florida than I did in Puerto Rico, my parents made sure to maintain our culture in our house. I was raised pretty much the same way I would have had we stayed in Puerto Rico. (Ok, like 90% since obviously there are outside influences from school, friends, etc.) But, my parents spoke Spanish in the house (and still do), we listened to Spanish music, we ate Puerto Rican food, and I was taught values and traditions that are important to our culture.

All of those things helped to make me who I am.

However, being Latina is not just a matter of “I listen to Spanish music,” or “I eat rice and beans.” That is not what makes me Latina.

To me, it’s more about the overall culture, values, traditions, and beliefs. It’s about understanding why family is so important to us. Or understanding why my parents believed that as the youngest sibling and the only girl, I couldn’t do some of the same things my brothers did. And, how about the fact that now that I’m older and my parents are aging, I must understand why my father prefers to speak with my brother (who lives in Milwaukee) about his health issues than with me who lives 10 minutes away?

These may seem like trivial points, but if you understand the way our culture operates and the overall mentality, it’s easier to understand why these things happen the way they do.

So, what does it mean to me to be Latina?

It means a rich culture, deep values, traditions, pride, and an overall appreciation for yourself and your family.

Oh! And the great music and sabrosa comida don’t hurt!

What does it mean to you?

September 15 – October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month. How will you celebrate?

As part of a recent collaboration I had with Little Pim, they sent me the first DVD of the Little Pim Spanish series for review. You may have seen me carrying a Little Pim bag at BlogHer and may have even received a demo from me.

Little Pim is a foreign language DVD series that uses a full immersion method to teach children a second language. Little Pim DVDs are meant for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers and use animation mixed with real kids to introduce words and phrases for everyday activities. They currently have the following languages: Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Hebrew and English.

The DVD we were sent was Eating and Drinking, which is also available digitally, along with all the Little Pim DVDs.

Things I Liked:

• The pronunciation of Spanish terms was very good. No Dora-like pronunciation.
• Each episode lasts 5 minutes, which means that young babies can watch one and you can then turn it off. You can then pick up later on a different episode and it still makes sense. Older kids, like my daughter, can watch the entire 35 minutes and it still flows well from one to the other.
• The Little Pim character (the panda) is adorable and makes the experience fun. Instead of just looking at a bunch of kids doing different actions and hearing a narrator describe the actions with different terms and phrases, you get a cute panda who entertains you along the way. It adds a fun element to the DVD.

Things That Can be Improved:

• Images displayed should always match the phrase.
  • Example: When “ella tiene sed” (she’s thirsty) was being said, there was a little girl drinking from a cup. Now, someone who doesn’t already know what the phrase means and can make the connection might think they were saying something like “she’s drinking”. However, we didn’t have the English subtitles on, which might solve that issue.
• There should be a pronunciation guide for parents. The parent guide that came with the DVD suggests you repeat the phrase after it’s said, but if you don’t know how to pronounce it, you might be doing more harm than good in repeating it.
• Towards the end of this particular DVD, they showed dogs and cats and taught the terms for the animals. Our initial reaction was, “What do pets have to do with eating and drinking?” It was at the end of the segment that they showed the pets eating food. So, I guess that was the connection, but it seemed a little odd.

Daughter’s Reactions/Thoughts:

• “Awww he’s a cute panda!”
• “Mommy, Little Pim is so silly.”
• “Look what Little Pim did! Ha ha ha ha ha”

In addition to the remarks about Little Pim, the character, she also asked many, many questions about the different things the kids were doing and the different phrases. She also started repeating the terms and phrases and did a really good job of pronouncing them properly.

Overall, Little Pim is a cute and fun way to introduce your child to a second language. The panda is entertaining, the interactive nature of the episodes engage children, and the repetitiveness of the phrases is good for learning. I can tell my daughter enjoyed the DVD and she’s asked to see it a couple of times since we initially had her watch it.

Thanks again Little Pim for being a sponsor of my BlogHer trip!

There is this thing in the Latino culture where your parents, or other relatives, will often say “terms of endearment” that if were said in the English language would be down-right insulting and offensive.

Examples:

SpanglishBaby just posted this past week about this issue. It was part of their Ask an Expert series and a reader asked, “Will my daughter be hurt by “negative” Spanish terms of endearment?” She wrote:

“My four month old son is easily entertained and smiles instantly at one’s playful interactions. However, my 22 month old daughter will not be playful until she feels comfortable with someone…The other day he told her (in a playful manner) ‘tu hermano es más bonito que tú porque el se ríe’.”

Translation? “Your brother is prettier than you because he smiles.”

I’ve never really given any of this much thought, but could certainly relate to the reader’s remarks and question. I experienced this myself and have many times been called “gorda” and “negrita“. You somehow get used to it I guess. Did growing up hearing such comments affect me? I have no clue honestly. My lack of confidence at times may partly be because of that or a myriad of other things that have happened in my life. Who knows.

In reality, no harm is meant when people say such things. It’s always in a playful manner and said “with love.” Growing up around it and in that culture, you know that to be true. But, now that I have a daughter and enough negative images out there to compete with, I’m certainly more aware of how hearing such things could cause some harm.

I’m not normally one to be overly cautious of how I say things. My husband, his family, my family, and our friends, all pretty much joke in the same manner and don’t hold back. It’s just known that you have to take the jokes to survive in our circle. In fact, if we don’t make fun of you, we probably don’t like you. This probably seems backwards, but the fact is that energy is spent on those we care for.

But, I think with our daughter, there will be a very distinct line between jokes and jokes that involve self-image. In today’s society, and with the culture she’s growing up in, it’s something my husband and I have to really consider.

My favorite part of the expert’s advice to the reader who posed the question:

“When your children are older and better able to understand what is being said, the terms will provide you with an excellent “teachable moment” for discussing cross-cultural communication, which is one of the 21st century skills necessary for success in the global economy!“

Discussing cultural differences and how she should understand and even embrace many of them, is something that I strive to teach my daughter.

Any thoughts? Did you grow up hearing “terms of endearment” that were more hurtful than loving?

Photo credit: Loligallardo