The Bilingual Revolution in Mexico City

Last Saturday, I participated in a panel on the future of bilingual and multilingual education in Mexico with Cristina Rascón (writer, literary translator, and director of Skribalia, a global school of online writers), Jonathan Payne (International Baccalaureate teacher at Churchill College) and Renata Somar (guitarist, literary translator, regional coordinator of Proyecto Échange , and director of Pli selon pli agency).

The event was organized by the Alianza Francesa Ciudad de Mexico, the music school Tiempomúsica and the agency Pli selon pli. I presented my book, The Bilingual Revolution, and shared stories and advice from my experience with dual-language programs in the United States and in New York in particular, using examples from various linguistic communities, and describing their motivations, challenges and successes.

All speakers agreed that more work had to be done in Mexico in order to advance multilingual education in public schools, and that numerous communities would greatly benefit from this type of education if it were widely offered, including indigenous communities.

We spoke about the role of parents as initiators of change in the Mexican educational landscape and how they could mobilize to actively create bilingual education programs in their local schools. Is Mexico ready for its bilingual revolution ? I believe so.