Why bilinguals are smarter

Having witnessed the immigration/cultural battles for a long time, I'm not surprised when people tell me to "speak English" when speaking Spanish, or when people accuse me and other Latinos of not wanting to "integrate" into the fabric of the U.S. just because I hold on to my mother tongue.

What's baffling is encountering education professionals who believe that children who learn Spanish have a hard time learning English. As if the brain was a vessel with just one liter capacity for languages, and if you fill half of it with Spanish, well, English won't have the room it deserves.

But it doesn't work that way. Languages, I've come to imagine, are like love: you can't have enough of them.

It's been great to see more and more reports come out detailing the effects of bilingualism in the brain. I experience it. I'm talking to my mother in Spanish one minute, answering my boss in English the next, and it's like my brain has flipped effortlessly, like a ballerina at the Bolshoi. It's beautiful.

My mother's learning American Sign Language, and she tells me now she understands more English as a result. Languages: you can't have enough of them.