From the Founder

The Founder (in white and red dress) celebrating her 5th birthday with friends.

Often with the arrival of those first few warm spring days comes a renewed sense of hope and strength. We feel that all is well in the world and we can accomplish anything to which we set our mind. However, spring in the Pacific Northwest can be deceptive and unpredictable - one day it feels like summer and then next they are predicting snow!

Raising multilingual and multicultural children is similar to spring in the Pacific Northwest; you just never know how things will go from one day to the next. One day you feel that everything is going well, following the well-laid out plans perfectly. The next day it goes astray. The difference between the weather and child rearing? We don't have a specialist looking at the our family's specific daily patterns and predicting what the next week will bring. The truth is, it is probably better that way.

Features & Essays
The articles in this month's newsletter remind us that not everything goes as smoothly as we want but that we should stay the course while at the same time allowing ourselves to periodically reevaluate our choices. Most of the time we have to rely on hope and faith and a belief in our parenting intuition. From keeping in touch with our cultural traditions (Culture Clash and Ethnopediatrics), to finding our roots in more than one culture (Where My Home Is and Maths-Not My Favourite Subject) we are constantly contemplating who we are, where we fit in and what the future will bring for our children. In Richard's essay, I Before Me, we are reminded of the joy of youth and language learning and Politics and Bilingualism reminds us not to take language for granted.

Columns
This month our fabulous Columnists have once again outdone themselves by giving us food for thought and heart-warming insights. Being a parent of a multilingual and multicultural child certainly keeps us on our toes - intellectually, emotionally and linguistically. Our Columnists remind us that we are all just doing the best we can and it is normal that we often feel like we are second-guessing ourselves.

Welcome our Experts!
We are delighted and honored to annouce that two more experts have joined up with BBFN to share their expertise!

Grace M. Libardo Alvarez is a Bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist and will not only be sharing her insights with us via the upcoming May issue of our Online Magazine, she will be contributing to a column titled Ask Grace, to answer your language questions, and will offer those in the Seattle area presentations and seminars. You can read her bio here. Please feel free to send your questions and correspondence to Grace directly at: grace@biculturalfamily.org.

Our other new contributing expert is Paula Enguidanos, an immigration lawyer who specializes in both family- and work-based immigration issues. Paula is called upon when a US Citizen wishes to petition for a non-citizen spouse to become a permanent resident and is there to aid clients who are interested in working in the US with a H-1B visa. She is also planning on contributing to our new Online Magazine, giving presentations and seminars and more. Learn more about Paula in her bio.

Thank you Grace and Paula for coming on board, we look forward to learning from your expertise!

Presentations & Seminars
Our March presentation, given by Harriet Cannon, M.C., was fabulous! Thank you, Harriet! The questions participants brought up during the presentation were wonderful and even lead us to plan a second presentation with Harriet, this time focused specifically on issues with extended family members. We will learn how to navigate our relationships with extended family members without causing a divide in the family. It will certainly be an outstanding lecture so don't miss it! Register here now!

We were lucky to have my mother and brother visiting for Harriet's March 30th lecture so we have a video of the lecture! Soon we will be offering the video for sale on our website for those of you who missed the lecture or live too far away to attend.

I am also offering my seminar "Strategies and Tips on Raising Bilingual Children: The Early Years" again in May. Space is limited to 12 so make sure to register here soon.

Community Collaborations
I have had the great fortune to have been contacted by Sabine Wilke, Ph.D, the Chair of the University of Washington Germanics department. She and I are putting our heads together to brainstorm ways her department and the BBFN (and our German playgroup, Kinderstube) can work together. A very exciting opportunity! So, don't be surprised if you see the UW Germanics department sponsoring many of our lectures and seminars! And, of course, for you German speakers in the Seattle area, we are putting together some very special events, round tables and more for Kinderstube members and the community.

Check Out our Advertisers
As you can see from our homepage, we have started the process of advertising on our website! We are targeting advertisers whose business or organization might be of interest to multilingual and multicultural families. Please help BBFN by navigating to our advertisers' websites by clicking on their ad on via our hompage and checking them out. We'd be delighted if they contacted us in the future to advertise with us again based on the great response from our BBFN families!

It is Contest Time!!
As you can see from our own ad at the top on the right, this newsletter is going to change to an Online Magazine! But we need a name for it! Please, please, please help us come up with a fabulous name for our new Online Newsletter. If we choose the name you suggest, then you will win some fabulous prizes from our contest sponsor, Language Lizard!

For more information on the contest and information on how to enter, click here. It is easy to enter! All you have to do is to fill out our online form and click the send button.

You are allowed to send in as many name recommendations as you want so get started sending them in now. We will allow three weeks for people to send in their entries so hurry, send in your ideas and win some great prizes!

Where is the BBFN Product Line?
We are still working hard on our BBFN Product Line but are a little behind our anticipated schedule. We hope to have our first product in a few weeks. I honestly believe you will all be as delighted and excited as I am when you see what we have been putting together! I can't wait to have them available for my children! Families around the world have been donating their time and efforts to help us put together our product line; I am overcome with emotion by the response of generosity and commitment from all of you. You are truly the backbone, foundation and heart of the BBFN! If there are others out there who would like to join us on the product team, contact me and we can discuss ways in which you might be able to get involved: corey@biculturalfamily.org.

There is so much more I'd like to share but all good things must come to an end. Please continue sending me your emails and letting me know what you think of our website, newsletter and anything else that might be on your mind: corey@biculturalfamily.org.

Don't forget to enter our Online Magazine naming contest!

Corey Heller
Founder, Bilingual/Bicultural Family Network
April 15th, 2006

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