Welcome to Yosoy!

gladysmarcela1964

Jan 103 min read

Updated: Jan 23

In today’s fast-paced world filled with responsibilities and exhaustion, fostering quality interactions rich in linguistic content with our children is becoming increasingly difficult. This challenge is even more pronounced in migration contexts, where Spanish, our culture, and traditional ways of interacting often take a back seat to learning and using the language and culture of the host country.

For Spanish speakers—adults and children alike—this can create significant emotional conflicts. Spanish is our medium for building connections, expressing affection, and staying connected with our families and cultural heritage.

Faced with these challenges, we ask ourselves:

How can we protect and enrich our Spanish and family culture while learning and using the language of the host country?
How can we create interaction spaces rich in language and culture?
How can we teach our children to take pride in their origins while embracing another culture?

Yosoy was born from the motivation to find answers to these and other questions. Yosoy is a project created to strengthen family bonds and foster pride in our linguistic and cultural roots through a unique experience that combines interactions in Spanish with the exploration of Latin American cultural content for the whole family.

What makes Yosoy unique?

Yosoy’s vision and mission set it apart from other Spanish learning programs. Grounded in child developmental psychology and applied linguistics, we understand that languages are acquired through meaningful interactions while exploring relevant and engaging content.

Learning a language involves curiosity, listening, speaking,

and sharing experiences with loved ones.

Our approach is designed to:

Encourage intergenerational interactions, confidence, and pride in cultural roots.
Strengthen plurilingual and pluricultural identities.
Recognize and celebrate dynamic bilingualism in migration contexts.

We aim for our children to feel confident and connected to their beautiful Latin American roots, cultivating self-assurance in speaking Spanish and high cultural self-esteem.

Our Materials: The Yosoy Books

Designed for plurilingual Latinx families, our books and materials promote cultural pride from the early school years. These resources aim to build intercultural and intergenerational bridges through:

Literature (stories, legends and poetry) in written and audio formats.
Historical references, music, and arts that reflect Latin America’s cultural richness.
Community and scientific research activities, math, and crafts.
Emphasis on the contributions of Indigenous communities and languages to Spanish, culture, and science.

How Do Yosoy Materials Support Plurilingual Skills Development?

Foster family interaction through reading, conversing, exploring, reflecting, enjoying, and creating together.
Stimulate socioemotional development by sharing emotions and feelings through the home language(s).
Promote authentic uses of Spanish in family and community contexts.
Provide adults with suggestions and strategies to expand linguistic repertoires and encourage cultural reflection, creating meaningful interactions and experiences.
Even in plurilingual conversations, the materials open new windows to knowledge about our countries and origins.

We aim to sow the seeds of curiosity and love for our heritage!

Services for Families and Schools

Yosoy also offers additional resources, specialized training, and consulting for families, schools, and community organizations to support them in protecting, accessing, and enriching Spanish and culture.

For Families: We provide individual consultations to help create environments for using Spanish. We also offer webinars on various topics related to bilingual development and parenting.
For Schools: We offer webinars on Yosoy’s pedagogy and guidance on integrating Yosoy materials into school curricula or designing extracurricular programs (after-school, vacation, or summer programs) using these resources and tools.