[00:00:03.490] - Dori Durbin

Hello, and welcome to The Power of Kids Books, where we believe books are a catalyst to inspire and empower change. I'm your host, Dori Durbin. You know, in this day and age, raising kids can be really tough. And it can be even tougher when you have to think about exactly what you want to have your family represent. What if you want to hold on to or connect your kids roots, but you really just don't know how to navigate that path? Well, if you're in that situation, I have a treat for you. Today's guest is the founder of the online platform Milagacy for Latina moms and multicultural families. She's also the author of a parenting book nobody Told Me this, about raising a bilingual child and the Latina Mom Legacy podcast. She's also a passionate advocate for bilingualism, multiculturalism family and the Latin community. She helps countless families navigate through the challenges of raising bilingual children, and she has her own sweet, multicultural daughter as well. So welcome Jani Perez.

[00:01:05.440] - Janny Perez

Hi. Thank you so much for having me on your show. Excited to be here.

[00:01:09.040] - Dori Durbin

I am truly honored. You've done some amazing things. You've talked to amazing people, and you're making lives so much better and easier for families who really want to embrace their culture. So can you give me just a little bit about your background and how this all started for you?

[00:01:24.400] - Janny Perez

Well, it's been a long journey, I should say. And actually, when I started my company in 2017, Me Legacy, I started it because I had my daughter, and at the time, she was about two. And I felt a calling. That's how I can describe it. I felt a calling to help other moms that were in a similar situation, like I was to help them sort of navigate bilingualism and multiculturalism. And how it started back then was I had a little subscription box, and I would get these orders. I would send the moms or the parents the subscription boxes where they would have activities in Spanish to help their child, to help them raise bilingual children. But I always had a soft spot for the mom. What ended up happening was that, long story short, that business model didn't work at all. And I lost a lot of money. I had all this inventory of product, and so I started going out to these shows, these mom shows, these baby shows, these expos. And what I realized that what I loved the most was connecting with the moms, the one on one interaction with the mom and hearing their stories.

[00:02:32.580] - Janny Perez

And that's how the Latina Mom Legacy Podcast was born in 2019. And then from there and meeting all these amazing women, sharing their stories, learning from each other in terms of how to raise bilingual children, how to navigate this long journey, it's sort of brought me here today, where I now have a book, I have workshops, I have courses, and it's been pretty amazing. I must say, I love that your.

[00:02:58.790] - Dori Durbin

Business developed out of a need and conversations, that's huge, that you can take something that you're observing and develop them into an actual program that helps people. That's amazing.

[00:03:09.240] - Janny Perez

Yeah, it's funny because the mission has always been the same, it has never changed. But the product and now service has sort of evolved out of that need, out of what people want and need for me, what I can offer them, how we can help each other and how we can sort of build and grow this community.

[00:03:27.530] - Dori Durbin

So are there particular groups of families beyond moms, like an age group that you focus on for the kids, anything like that?

[00:03:36.210] - Janny Perez

Sure. The podcast itself is for bilingual parenting in general, so I offer a lot of tips and culture as well, so that can really range from zero to adults. I mean, I just finished an interview with a mom who had 18 year olds and she's still navigating that bilingual parenting journey for sure. In terms of on the website, the course and the book, I would say, is geared more for the early bilingual parent or that wants to raise bilingual children. That parent that wants to raise bilingual children, that has a young one that's either pregnant, a toddler or still in what we call the golden years, where they're more apt to absorb and acquire the language. And that's usually zero to six years old.

[00:04:23.360] - Dori Durbin

Okay, so what about for families who maybe are second generational? They weren't raised to have any sort of multicultural background at all, even though they have it? And how do they even navigate getting started in that situation?

[00:04:39.490] - Janny Perez

I think as adults, many of us have and I include myself in that group, many of us have sort of a wake up call, a moment where something makes us question an incident, makes us question where we come from. And from that moment, I think you start to sort of do some soul searching and researching and asking your family questions, perhaps your grandparents questions. And that's kind of where it starts. I've spoken with many moms who had that moment. I spoke with a mom who was in the grocery store with her husband and she had that moment where she questioned that. And it can come up in different ways. Many moms experience that when they have their children where they don't feel like they had that connection to their culture, but now they want their children to have that connection because they felt like they didn't have that connection. And so the moms begin that soul searching and it's never going to be perfect, but they feel that by giving their child something of their heritage, of their background at least, that sort of brings them a stronger connection or helps them build that stronger connection to their background.

[00:06:02.130] - Dori Durbin

Are there common issues that parents face when they're trying to reclaim their ethnicity or their background? When trying to just raise kids at the same time.

[00:06:12.990] - Janny Perez

Sure. What happens a lot is that a lot of the moms and dads, they have a lot of healing to do. They have a lot of personal healing. And many people don't really talk about that because sometimes, especially for immigrant parents, no matter what your background is from, immigrant parents have a lot of trauma attached. And many times for safety of their children, they don't share those painful stories of struggle, of hardship. And so to protect their children, they sort of stop that. But then when the child grows up, they sort of grow up not understanding their identity and where their family comes from. And it's when they look back and ask those questions that they kind of start putting the puzzle pieces together.

[00:07:09.730] - Dori Durbin

Yeah, that's really interesting because I can see where I have a Hispanic background. We weren't raised that way. But I saw a lot of shame and felt at the time growing up like hidden stories that I wasn't supposed to know. And as I've gotten older, it was more protective as you were describing. And so I can see that if you're constantly trying to protect your history, it's hard to share the history with your kids and yet you know that something's missing. So it would be a really emotional thing for parents to go through for sure.

[00:07:42.110] - Janny Perez

It's definitely something that takes a lot of healing. Sometimes therapy families that go through therapy often experience a lot of things that emotions and feelings that come to the surface that they never even knew were there because they have these conversations with their parents and they discover things like, wow, I understand now why my mom was like that, why my dad was like that. I had a conversation with my mom that it was a very deep and emotional conversation that we had of something, an incident that happened to her when she was a young girl and that was the sole reason why she stopped going to school and to now understand that. And that was something that happened within the last year that I understood that that's why her life shaped the way because of this one traumatic incident that happened as a child. And to me, that was very awakening for me to understand her story and her history and her struggles and also to not put judgment and place blame on her because it sort of helped me empathize and see her in a different way because of what she had gone through.

[00:08:59.110] - Dori Durbin

That's fascinating. Yeah. And for it to take as long as it did to surface, that tells you how deep that was actually hidden.

[00:09:05.820] - Janny Perez

My mom is 77 years old. She's going to be 78 years old. And she just told me this, I would say within the last six to eight months.

[00:09:14.600] - Dori Durbin

Wow.

[00:09:15.480] - Janny Perez

Like crazy deep.

[00:09:17.300] - Dori Durbin

Yeah. Somebody listening who maybe doesn't have a background like this. They're probably wondering well, why would you even try to reclaim it? What would it do for you? What will it do for your kids who are now three generations out? Have you had any really amazing things that have happened because people have done this.

[00:09:37.330] - Janny Perez

I think part of it is you have to want to go deep. And like, I keep using the word soul searching because it comes from having questions, from feeling sort of not whole, from feeling perhaps that something is missing inside of you and you don't understand what that is. And when you start to raise these questions, when you start to ask and go deeper, it really is a transformational journey. Because not only do you discover your history and your family's history and perhaps what they went through to be where they are today, where your family is today, but it also helps explain a lot of things of why your parents behaved the way, why your grandparents behaved the way, why certain behaviors or values were passed down from generation to generation and even the limiting beliefs and the great values. So it's a great way for you to sort of stop the cycle, if you will. If you come from a background that has experienced a lot of trauma that has passed down generation upon generation of limiting beliefs or generational trauma, that you can sort of reclaim that and say, okay, this stops in this generation.

[00:10:59.700] - Janny Perez

Now, moving forward, knowing what I know, I'm going to raise my son and daughter without these values or without this, because I don't want them to grow up with these limiting beliefs.

[00:11:10.680] - Dori Durbin

I love that perspective and that healing piece that's in there.

[00:11:14.660] - Janny Perez

Yeah, because many times people want to negate their background and the past because they say, well, that's the past. The past. We can't change the past. I understand that. But you have to know where you come from in order to know where you need to go and where you want to go. Because our past sort of shapes whether we like it or not, it shaped our parents or grandparents, and it kind of shaped us because we are, whether we like it or not, a reflection in many ways of our family, of our parents, good or bad. And I say this with my own daughter. When I hear her say things, and I'm like, oh, that's me. I need to stop saying that. Because when you hear somebody else reflect what you think or what you say, that's a lot of value. And that just is sort of a wake up call for you to sort of change your ways or modify certain behaviors. So you have to know where you come from in order for you to know how you can change moving forward.

[00:12:14.740] - Dori Durbin

That makes a lot of sense. I think that's with any parent raising but then, like you said, with a complex history behind you, finding that information and using that is just huge. Let me ask you this. So I know you have a book that we'll talk about in just a minute, but your title is Nobody Told Me this, about raising a bilingual child. So what are some things that are surprising for people when they do start to embrace this value of regaining their culture?

[00:12:43.280] - Janny Perez

Again, there are a lot of things that for me, nobody had told me. I read a lot of books, I went to a lot of blogs and I learned all the technical stuff like what it does to the brain and the science behind it and all the benefits, all that great, wonderful. All the scholar tags. Yes, great. But what I felt that many of those books were missing was the reality and the practicality of it when you're a parent, when you're a mom, and how difficult it can be and how that journey is so different. No matter if this book says, this method is the best for you, and this one says, well, you should use this method, that every family's journey is so different and every child is so different. So that was key for me, that everyone's bilingual parenting journey is different and it's going to look different. And no matter if everybody's going to tell you do this or try this, but really, unless they live in your house, in your shoes, it may look totally different for you and your child. That's just how it's going to be. So I wanted the mom and the dad that picked up this book to say and feel like they were understood that they were heard and that it wasn't going to be something overwhelming for them, that they could open the book and just sit like I'm talking to you with an old girlfriend and just say, hey, nobody told me this.

[00:14:16.620] - Janny Perez

Nobody told me that it was going to be lonely. Okay? Nobody told me that I was going to lose friends over the fact that I'm raising a bilingual child. Nobody told me that it was important for me to have a strong connection or help my child have a strong connection to the language over me sitting with them for an hour studying, because that's not going to help them. So there were so many things that went into the book, but always, again, having that soft spot for the mom and the dad, but really for them to be able to pick up this book and say, okay, she gets me, I like this, I can listen to her.

[00:14:56.150] - Dori Durbin

It seems like too, you're giving the realities, but you're doing it in a simple way that just feels it's genuine. It's something that you really are coming right alongside them and explaining and preparing, but yet still their friend through the process.

[00:15:11.370] - Janny Perez

Yeah, 100%. I wanted to give them the science without it being overwhelming. Like giving them just enough for them to be like, oh, okay, that makes sense. And here's the practical application. Here's what you can do. Here are five steps that you can do. And I really wanted it to feel like a workbook, like they could just sit, do some exercises, kind of think about their experience, think about their children, think about their family, and really sort of engage with the book.

[00:15:47.670] - Dori Durbin

I love that. Now you have the book there and you're willing to read a little bit of it.

[00:15:53.290] - Janny Perez

Yes.

[00:15:54.230] - Dori Durbin

Probably want you to read all of it by the time you read the little bit. But for today, I will say it's.

[00:16:00.510] - Janny Perez

Not a long book. It's not a long book. I say it's an easy read, but it was purposely done that way again. So that the parent that wants to start on this journey, that wants to gift their children the gift of another language, that they didn't have to feel overwhelmed. Okay, so I'm going to read a little snippet about this chapter is called nobody Told Me the Importance of Creating a Positive Emotional Connection to the Language for my child. When I started raising my daughter bilingually, I knew that I didn't want her to resent the language or me. I didn't want to create a forceful environment, but I did want to create an intentional one. That meant being understanding. If my daughter couldn't express herself in one language and preferred the other, that meant practicing a lot of patience and doubting myself whether she was learning enough. Most importantly, I wanted to make sure that she was having strong positive emotional connections to the language so she could view the language as a positive force in her life. Now, how have I helped her create a strong positive connection to the language when she is not immersed in the language or culture as I was, when she lives far away from her extended family and when we are also incorporating a third language?

[00:17:22.750] - Janny Perez

Focus on making it fun, making it impactful, and making memories.

[00:17:28.070] - Dori Durbin

Yes, you should read more. Well, it's fascinating to me being somebody who wasn't raised with that, who is always jealous of people who did speak Spanish and knowing that I could learn it. But the only way that I could learn it was actually I learned it for the first time in college, which was a grade. So it wasn't like it was like a positive emotional thing for me at all. And so you are tying the fun, the experiential pieces and just the emotional pieces of the family together with learning the language then.

[00:18:03.990] - Janny Perez

Yes, because when it becomes a chore, when it becomes something just like another subject, like math, like science, the child is not going to want to embrace it. They're not going to want to learn or even have curiosity about it. They're not going to have that curiosity about it. So when you can engage and this goes just for just about for any subject, when you can make the subject engaging, make it fun, have them be curious, create a memory around it. They're going to have that curiosity, and they're going to want to learn more about it. Because if you make it a chore, I mean, think about it. Do you want to sit and listen to a lecture for an hour and then have a test on it? No.

[00:18:51.440] - Dori Durbin

Right.

[00:18:51.880] - Janny Perez

But if you're engaged, if the teacher makes it fun, if you go outside, perhaps if you're learning, if you're engaging with other people, then, yeah, you're going to love that class. You're going to be like, yeah, I love going to so and so's class. It's wonderful. We go out, we have fun. So that's what I want parents to think about when they're teaching children another language, whether it's Spanish, whatever language it is, is to make it engaging for the child again, for them to have that emotional connection to the language.

[00:19:25.450] - Dori Durbin

For your book, I know language is probably a big piece of it. Is it just language that you talk about?

[00:19:31.710] - Janny Perez

I also talk a little bit about the cultural component about it, because it is important that when children are learning language, whether it's a heritage language or not, that they learn about that culture of the language that they're learning about. So my daughter is learning Spanish. I'm Colombian. I speak Spanish. But my daughter is also Bulgarian. My husband is Bulgarian. So she's learning Bulgarian and she goes to a Bulgarian school on the weekends. It's very important for us as a family to engage in all the cultural events. I don't speak Bulgarian, but they have adopted me as one of their own. And I love it because I understand their culture. I understand why my husband does or says certain things. I understand why what is the reason behind certain values or certain things. And again, it just opens the door for you to sort of break down those language and communication barriers and again, for you to just open up your mind and your heart to other cultures. I think it's important.

[00:20:45.110] - Dori Durbin

So as a coach, have you pulled away one really valuable lesson from having worked with families who are trying to accomplish this?

[00:20:54.730] - Janny Perez

I think probably the biggest is that many parents feel like this is very overwhelming, like it's something for them to do, and they feel like there has to be a specific way or program or something. And I think the main thing that the family needs to come to an agreement, the one agreement that they have to come to is that you will raise a bilingual child. Once you have that determination, everything else will fall into place. Because if you're clear on the fact that you will be raising a bilingual or multilingual child, then you will find the schools, you will find the time, you will get all the resources that you need. But I think that's the biggest component is just making that decision. Once you make that decision, understand that that decision is going to be for the next 18 years. If you really want to commit to it, it's a long term commitment to it. But once you make that decision, that's all you need. Everything else will fall into place as long as you're committed and you say, I will raise a bilingual child, even if you're a non native speaker, by the way, you don't have to be a native speaker.

[00:22:20.050] - Janny Perez

I've spoken with many non native speakers. I'm a non native Bulgarian speaker, and I am raising a multilingual child.

[00:22:27.830] - Dori Durbin

That says something right there. Just the fact that you are able to do that and to be able to you're doing multilingual, and most of us are scared to do bilingual, so that's huge. That is awesome. Okay, so the last question I have for you is a tough one. What do you wish kids knew before they became adults? About maybe their culture, themselves, any of those areas?

[00:22:55.980] - Janny Perez

What do you wish they knew? I wish they knew that if they can dream it and believe it, they can do it. And that's something that that was the best lesson that my father gave me. And my father came from nothing. My father was very poor and he had dreams of seeing the world, and he had it in his heart that one day he was going to be in an airplane and fly the world. And he did. And my dad always told me, if you can dream it, believe it and work hard enough for it, you can do anything in life. And I think for a child, as you become an adult, I think when you become an adult, you start to lose some of that spark, some of that faith, some of those dreams sort of start to vanish. But if you can continue that little spark all the way until you're gone from this earth, then you can do amazing things.

[00:24:02.790] - Dori Durbin

I love it. That's perfect way to end this interview. So, Jenny, where can people find you your programs and get in touch with you for more information?

[00:24:13.510] - Janny Perez

You can find me at milegacy spelled milegasi.com for the blogs, for the courses, any workshops or events, you can find that there. And you can also listen to me on the Latina Mom Legacy podcast and that is on all major podcast platforms.

[00:24:32.810] - Dori Durbin

Fantastic. Well, I thank you for your time. I thank you for your expertise and your honesty in this.

[00:24:39.380] - Janny Perez

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[00:24:41.250] - Dori Durbin

Thank you.