I have 5 children of my own. They are bilingual, like most second and third generations. But they speak primarily in English and they couldn't find anything on television that represented who they are in this country.
My films have become bilingual. When everyone saw 'Chennai Express,' they said it was a bilingual. But I am proud that 'Chennai Express' is the highest-grossing Hindi film down South.
My mother at a young age put me in bilingual, so my strength is really more in Spanish. Even though I live and I was born and raised in the States, you know, in the Bronx, in Spanish I get my point across. And when I'm writing music, when I'm doing music, it's easier for me, and I know exactly how to express myself.
Mum and Dad sent us to a bilingual school, so we had half the lessons in English and half in French. But I remember being hugely lost.
I came here when I was almost 22. I'm perfectly bilingual, but I'm never going to sound like Sandra Bullock.
Serial tasking is hard because switching tasks is hard, even when the tasks are easy and similar. In some experiments, bilingual speakers are asked to read out numbers, first in one language and then midway in another language. They often stumble at the switch, taking many tries before they hit their stride again.
An alcoholic father, poverty, my own juvenile diabetes, the limited English my parents spoke - although my mother has become completely bilingual since. All these things intrude on what most people think of as happiness.
I was born in Germany and grew up immersed in international school communities. I was in the German bilingual track, spent a few years in rural Canada, and then went to the United World College of the Adriatic in Italy.
Make no mistake. Canada is not a bilingual country. In fact it is less bilingual today than it has ever been.
My work, my love of words, became my refuge, both when I was working on bilingual dictionaries for Oxford University Press and then via my involvement with 'Countdown' - and now 'Catsdown,' as I call it.
