S5E5 Its About Language : Embrace Your Gifts | Guest Ana Lucia Lico

What if maintaining your heritage language is the key to unlocking a deeper sense of belonging and cultural identity? Join me as I sit down with Ana Lucia Lico, a fervent advocate for heritage language preservation. Ana shares her compelling journey from Brazil to the United States, transitioning from a career in science to becoming an influential figure in education. Her story is one of resilience and dedication as she spearheaded the creation of a language cooperative that grew into ABRACE, a thriving cultural association in the Washington DC area. Discover how Ana's passion helped shape a supportive community for language learners, emphasizing the critical role of heritage language in nurturing one's identity amidst new cultural landscapes.

In our heartfelt conversation, Ana reveals the intricate dance of raising children with a strong connection to their roots while navigating the challenges of adolescence. She highlights the profound influence of parental support and community-based schools in fostering a dual sense of belonging. These schools offer more than just language lessons; they are vibrant hubs for cultural celebrations, friendships, and the embracing of multiple cultural identities. We discuss how these cultural ties strengthen, rather than compromise, integration into broader society, providing a comprehensive view of the significance of creating environments where children feel valued and respected.

Ana also sheds light on the ongoing battle to preserve one's language and culture against external pressures. She advocates for educators and parents to seek out and build supportive communities, emphasizing the vital role of the Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools. As the episode draws to a close, Ana shares her personal aspirations, including writing a book about her family's journey, and leaves a touching message for her sons on the importance of maintaining their heritage amidst new experiences. This episode is a testament to the power of language in shaping cultural identity and fostering a sense of belonging across generations.

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Transcript

0:00:04.4 Norah Lulich Jones: How do we welcome one another? How do we welcome those whose languages and cultures vary from ours? In this wonderful conversation with my guest, Ana Lucia Lico, we take a look at her own family experiences that were the basis for a research project that demonstrated the impulses towards both language learning and language loss that we experience in the United States and around the world. Listen to her stories. Listen to her research. And discover for yourself the importance of welcoming everyone with the suitcase of their experiences, into our own lives for sharing.

0:00:49.9 Intro : Welcome to Season 5, Episode 5 of It's About Language, with your host, Norah Lulich Jones. Today's guest, Ana Lucia Lico, shares her inspiring journey of preserving language and culture while embracing a new life in a different country. Together, Norah and Ana explore how this loving support shaped Ana's family, her career as an educator, and her profound insights into the power of language and cultural identity. Welcome to the podcast.

0:01:23.5 Norah Lulich Jones: It's my pleasure to welcome my guest and friend, Ana Lucia Lico, here for this podcast. Welcome, Ana Lucia.

0:01:34.2 Ana Lucia Lico: Thanks. What a great opportunity, honor, to be here. Finally with my friend.

0:01:40.8 Norah Lulich Jones: The honor is mine because you have created something that is just so dear to my heart and those that care about adolescence, care about learners of language. You have published a study and contributed to a book about the experience of adolescence in their heritage experience. So let's start with your background, what you have been doing professionally, as well as personally here for these last several decades, that set the stage for why you did the research as well as the content of the research as we'll talk about it.

0:02:25.4 Ana Lucia Lico: Before I moved to Dewas, I was in the science field, but even before, even for 10 years before moving to the US, I already worked with people directly, with communication, with building bridges between what companies had to say and what people... How would we get those messages to all levels of social class and education people would be able to understand.

0:03:00.8 Ana Lucia Lico: When I moved to the US, it was because I dated... My husband is a North American. He's from the United States. And we met in Brazil. We dated distance for two years, and then I moved. And our first son was born, not long after I moved to the US. And when he was born, by the time he was three, four days old, my husband had already read this book called How to Raise Bilingual Kids. And he said, "Ana, you gotta read this book. It's fabulous."

0:03:46.3 Ana Lucia Lico: And so it was early in our lives as a couple and then as a family. How would we really deal with the languages with the kids and in our daily lives living in the US? Never occurred to me that I would not speak Portuguese to them since Portuguese is my native language. So having the kids... And me as a new mom in a country where I had no friends, no family, I knew, Oh my God, I need a support network somehow. And I found pretty much out of chance, if that exists, a couple of other Brazilian families. Then we together founded this mother's group in the Virginia-DC-Maryland area, the DMV area.

0:04:48.1 Ana Lucia Lico: And a program, like a cooperative teaching language and culture to our kids was found, was born out of that mother's group. So we say that that was the first child of that collective mother's group. And this baby, this educative initiative became ABRACE, which is the Brazilian Association for Cultural and Education based in Virginia. So he was born in 2003. By 2004, we had the mothers' group. And we started this language program. Culture and language program that back then, we didn't even call heritage language yet. It was like not mother language or second language, whatever additional language.

0:05:42.9 Ana Lucia Lico: And that's how my career as educator was born because I started learning and studying a lot to help with this education program. The classes were at the parent's house. At the mother's house. So it was every week... Very much they structure of what they call Sunday school or Saturday school. But it was at our house. We alternated every month. It was at a different... And we mothers were the teachers on a rotating basis. It was quite cool.

0:06:18.1 Ana Lucia Lico: Since then. Since you asked my career, since then, so ABRACE was born in 2005 with those programs. And I'm one of the founders, the mothers who founded ABRACE. And I remained engaged with ABRACE for many years. I was the executive director. And it was in my capacity as executive director that I got to meet Joy Payton. We started interacting in 2012. '13, we finally meet, and that's how the conference that we run annually at American University was born out of one conversation she and I were having at a Panera in Virginia when she still lived in Virginia. And from there the coalition was born Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Languages schools. So those two pieces of work, working with Brazilian communities in partnership with other associations in many countries is like my Brazilian side. And then my contribution to the many other languages is through the coalition side, as if that exists.

0:07:38.0 Norah Lulich Jones: That growth of engagement with more and more growing, the circle of people that are interested in that, now yours have how many children? And you have kept up with your Portuguese with them, is that correct?

0:07:55.2 Ana Lucia Lico: That's absolutely correct. Yeah. I have two boys. I mean, I have two sons. One is now 21 and the other is 18. And I've watched through the years how easy it is for the teenage years bring for heritage, language and culture when they reach the teenage years. Research shows, many studies show that the connection with their parents native language and culture start going down pretty dramatically. With the passing years. But when they reach teenage years, not only because of the pressure of a lot of reading and schoolwork from mainstream schools, but also peer pressure and if they don't interact with families and don't have friends in the native language and culture. So in 2020, I did a programme with this institute from Portugal. They had months of classes that culminated with a short, small research project. And back then I did a research project and about the teenage years and how, for those teenagers who did keep in touch with their heritage, language and culture, what did they do using the language?

0:09:16.5 Ana Lucia Lico: What did they really... Did they really connect with the culture how? So we wanted to focus back then in the positives. We know about the negatives, but what did they, and that was the very inspiring, that was the seed for my research project when I did the master's programme. Also because I wanted to do a deep dive on how do they see their learning trajectory when they get, okay, teenage year, why teenage years is also only because they tend to be the orphans. They don't belong there. They don't belong here. Especially if they were born in the native country and then moved to the US, whenever, later.

0:10:04.5 Ana Lucia Lico: And I wanted to get some information on their perception of their trajectory, learning trajectory, but also if they are connected to their inherited identity, what's the role of the language in that? And so for me, I don't know how to be a mom in another language other than my native language. It's my heart language or language of my heart. And I've said that for many years, and every time I say that, people, especially Brazilians, they go like, "Oh, I never thought about it this way." Because to me was always so, is always so natural. Like we are visiting in-laws. We are at the table having dinner. I don't speak to my boys in a different language because they're my boys. It's our connection. It's so us, it's precious, it's our little, I say it's our little Brazilian seating, whatever area. So yeah, I think, did I answer?

0:11:10.1 Norah Lulich Jones: Yes. And one of the things that I think is so powerful about the fact that you're combining your scientific background, your love of research with the storytelling that captures the heart of people. That's a one-two punch for folks to be able to understand the role of heritage language, heritage identity in a very important group. Namely folks, exactly like your sons who have a background and who have had a parent that has dedicated herself just naturally to keeping them going as bilingual folks. So let's dive into that storytelling a little bit. You mentioned about how adolescents perceive their own journey, how they perceive their identity. And you've mentioned a very important part there about the fact that they could consider themselves orphans, neither in one culture nor the other. And that's hard for an adolescent. So tell some of the stories, share some of the narrative that you got from speaking with your son with that, the research that you did and some other stories that you may have to tell that illustrate what you have found.

0:12:31.1 Ana Lucia Lico: So, if I may say, if I may simplify to make it a little more objective, their narratives show that, and I get goosebumps by sharing that, in their words, if they see themselves as, for example, Brazilians or if they identify with what being a Brazilian is, the Brazilian culture and stuff, it starts and is primarily nurtured by their strong connection to the parent who speaks that language. Whether it's one or both. And so both in the two studies I did the short one first and then my master's research, which took a little over a year. Their perception is if my mother is from this country, is from Brazil and she is the way she talks, the food we cook, the way our interaction goes, all our lives in Portuguese, the process is so natural.

0:13:51.6 Ana Lucia Lico: The acquisition is so natural and is so profoundly meaningful that they don't see themselves, there is no sacrifice or effort really. It's really natural. So the attitude of the parents, the parent who's the speaker of the minority language say, is key throughout the whole process. So that's from their words, not my words. That's one side of it, if I may say side. And the other is, Norah, is tremendously impacting the effective aspect of the learning, not only the cognitive. And by that I mean my sons and several of the other teenagers I interviewed for my first smaller study, they were for many years as students attending a community-based heritage language school.

0:15:04.7 Ana Lucia Lico: Through those years, in their perception, the most important part is not the classes where they learned grammar, are not the classes where they learned history. The most important part, and I get goosebumps again, is the friendships that they created, the fun times they had at recess. The amazing experiences they had, meaningful experiences they had in the native country. Not only so when visiting family, the extended family. When meeting kids from my friends, friends of mine who have kids and they do play times, when they had play times together or they go to movies or they do summer camps and they do in the native country. So we tend to focus too much on the learning, the technical part of the learning per se, and we don't invest enough in nurturing this whole package. It's so beautiful. My study, my research is being published in English probably by January, will be finished January, February. And I do wanna share it because it has some very precious insights for parents and educators related to what you just asked.

0:16:31.9 Norah Lulich Jones: That's huge. And the goosebumps are not only on your part but also on mine that it's the belonging. Once again, that makes all the difference. Language can be considered a head game, but that's a belonging moment that happens. When you take a look at, let's for just a moment kind of broaden this a bit, and I don't mean to take it off the heritage language approach because that in itself is such an important context we could talk about for days. But there's an element here, the belonging part, the understanding of how adolescents who now have more charge of their brains and their spirits and their decisions begin to turn from, I'll learn this content because I'm in front of it to I need a sense of belonging in order to commit. Have I said that correctly? Have I tapped on something here that has a larger picture or includes, if I put it that way, better includes more learners of language along with heritage language learners.

0:18:00.0 Ana Lucia Lico: First of all, I think the belonging aspect is like the, is so critical. It's critical to be achieved and to be valued and respected and to belong. For example, my kids never saw that they had to leave Portuguese aside in order to belong, for instance, to the American society, to their circle of friends in the mainstream school. They never saw they had to skip one or leave one behind. Also because I know my family is privileged that my husband is a US native citizen, but he always supported and valued so much what I had to bring, what I brought. He used this metaphor many years ago. The kids were little when he told a friend of ours, he said, when you marry somebody from a different country, you don't expect this adult moves to your country with an empty suitcase. You don't expect that they bring nothing of their history, of their pleasures. The music they listen to the books they like, the literature pieces that made who they are. And so having a partner who's completely on your side. And so at home we always had this Brazilian celebrations, American celebrations. For Brazilians, there isn't Thanksgiving.

0:19:47.0 Ana Lucia Lico: Like Halloween. We see Halloween nowadays in several Latin countries, Latino countries. Why? Because they're copying some other countries, but they were not many. So to me we need to do, but so I learned as a Brazilian too. Wow. Get to know and respect the local, I mean the majority society here is culture and customs and things like that, but that was not at the expense of what I planted or what we valued what every year we went to Brazil, the kids brought so much back with them. They brought their suitcases full too. So belonging, whether in a classroom, whether in a K-12 mainstream kind of school classroom, whether in a heritage language classroom, whether in a playgroup or whatever, that is so important for their wellbeing so they feel respected and valued.

0:20:54.9 Norah Lulich Jones: I'm dazzled and you have suggestions in your results in the things that you share at conferences and in meetings of many kinds to those in education, parents of adolescents or emerging adolescents, to encourage that return to a heritage language study or to continue in more in depth. What are some of the other stories that you have found? Because this rich experience of where you say they never felt, your sons never felt like they had to leave their Brazilian identity behind in order to fit in. Is that common and where it is not the feeling of the adolescents? How do you speak to those that are working with them to address that?

0:21:57.9 Ana Lucia Lico: I can't say it's common. Actually, I am sad to say that I don't think it's even the predominant situation for many or most adolescents. The number one suggestion I give is to the mother or father or both who are the native, came to the US from their countries, that they themselves fight to remain proud of who they are of their roots and what everything they lived that brought them to where they are. We don't need as adults to empty our suitcases in order to live peacefully and integrate in the new society. And that's huge because that's the main message you are giving your kids. If your native origin, if who you are is of minor value or it values less than the majority society and nobody should ever have to feel like that. That's number one. The number two is for parents to fight. Even if a little bit, even if they work too much during the week, they don't have much time, but on weekends, try to create opportunities for the kids to interact, having fun, interact nicely with other adults and children in the language, in the heritage language.

0:23:39.4 Ana Lucia Lico: It doesn't need to be in a classroom. Even if, Oh, there is no community association near me or I can't pay private tutors or stuff. It doesn't matter. Do a recipe together. Try to play games you used to play when you were young or had a certain age. Try to teach them and invite the husband or invite the wife to play those games too. That's for the, and if possible at all possible, try regular visits back to the country. Back to the country of their origin. That, Oh, we cannot go every year. It doesn't matter. Go when you can. Go every two years. Go every three years. Send the kids alone if it's possible to stay with grandparents for a couple of weeks and stuff like that. On the educator side, I think it's very important that the educators understand what's happening at the family in the households because it's very easy to criticize.

0:24:42.6 Ana Lucia Lico: It's very easy not to welcome the different backgrounds. The educators have to be themselves welcoming so those families feel they belong before their kids would be able to feel they belong to whatever school, community and classroom. That's one. And two, the educators need to plan activities and lesson plans and stuff with the teenagers input, the teenagers want and need to have a protagonist role in the process. They can't just be sitting down, top down kind of no. No for many reasons and once they actively participate, they feel their voices are heard, valued, respected, they engage more. Then you have them. And each of them will be different.

0:25:39.0 Ana Lucia Lico: Even, for example, could be a mainstream school or at a heritage community based school. They have different backgrounds. Even if you have a class of 10 kids from Brazilian families, they have different histories. They have different stories. One may be of a family who never goes to Brazil, the other goes to Brazil very often. One is both parents are from Brazil, the other... So the teachers need to invest a pretty decent amount of time getting to know them, get to know their narratives, get to hear where they have been, what they've been doing.

0:26:15.4 Norah Lulich Jones: What keeps courses from being able to do that. There seems to be, and you can correct me here of course if I'm wrong, there seems to be a drop off of commitment and the students... Do they understand the opportunities that are available to them? Can they see... How can they be provided a vision so that they can share those kinds of hopes with educators? And it's hard I think to encourage up generationally, but to be the protagonists in understand why their investment of their energies might happen. It's probably putting too much on the young person to do that, but it's such a gift to be able to have multiple cultural and linguistic experiences to draw from as part of your identity.

0:27:30.3 Ana Lucia Lico: I think they see throughout the process, they see that at their corresponding level. So when they're 10, if they're playing soccer outside in a field with a bunch of everyone, if there are two kids who speak to each other in Brazil, in Portuguese, and say something like, Hey, go get that ball, in Portuguese. Somebody else will go, wow, you speak Portuguese, are you from Brazil? Oh my gosh, I'm such a fan of Pele, or I'm such a fan of whatever. So that itself is like, wow. Hey, it's nice to be a Brazilian. Yeah. That's a small little example. Nobody needed to tell them. That's one example. What I think, Norah, going back to the first part of your question, I think curriculums and school's directives are not yet considering or fully prepared to give features, training and space for that welcoming for that really being student-centered. 'Cause it's easy to say student-centered, but what is student-centered?

0:28:48.1 Ana Lucia Lico: Oh, there are two Arabic students in my classroom and two Mexican student in my classroom. So I'm gonna to include here some texts to read about Arab cultures and texts to read about. Is that student centred honey? No, it's not. That's not. So it's way beyond that. So it's more work and it's more curriculum flexibility. But down the road research, not opinions, research shows it works and it works deeply that down the road it's more rewarding and satisfying for the educators and for the schools to see how their students succeed. And schools need to engage the families. They need to engage, reach out to the communities, reach out to where some events are doing. And in schools, mainstream schools can absolutely count with community-based schools as their partners to do that work, to organize events together so the school doesn't have money, resources, time to prepare a cultural event in whatever language the community school is already doing, they're doing it for you.

0:30:04.1 Ana Lucia Lico: So that's one aspect, but I think it's not difficult to show teenagers of many 14, 15, 16. It's not difficult to show them how powerful is their linguistic and cultural repertoire nowadays, more and more. And they can see, what I say it's not difficult. It's not difficult for teachers or parents to gather data to show them and show proportionately to what their age can process or understand. You're not gonna tell a 6-year-old, oh, this is gonna be very important for your career. Excuse me, to any career. What is a career mom? I just wanna play. I wanna a video game or whatever. So I mean, you've gotta be really adequate here. Approach it in a best proper whatever way. But it's not difficult for them to, for educator, again, for the educators and parents to gather information that will be music to their ears.

0:31:14.9 Ana Lucia Lico: You approach it, they are crazy for sports. Approach it through sports or they're crazy for technology. Get it through technology like, Hey, did you know that this video game building companies are looking for people who speaks all kinds of languages to develop games for whatever respective countries? And there you go. If the teenagers resist, if they don't see it, which is common, especially if the parents... If they were raised in a household who felt you don't need this. Whatever minority language, if you know English, you're ready for the word. And we know that's not true. Even many Americans are awakening or waking up to realise that.

0:32:05.2 Norah Lulich Jones: It's interesting you brought in so heavily there, that moment where the adult indeed, again, is demonstrating the value or lack thereof. And you also mentioned about a partnership and the community based heritage language schools, which you are a co-founder and board member. Providing opportunities like kicking the ball down the thing and it turns out that somebody is enjoying it too. From that to research information to partner activities so that an exhausted teacher doesn't have to try to think of something that they'd like to do, but they don't have time to do. All of this seems to be pulling together my friend, a sense of how it is that there are opportunities around adolescents and educators and parents that can help to pull some of these themes together and to encourage everyone's attitude to say, we embrace this multilingual opportunity. Help us to understand where people find that, what the Community-Based Heritage Language Schools are about, where these stories happen that change people's lives.

0:33:29.7 Ana Lucia Lico: And the context of the Community-Based Heritage Language Schools. Well, you summarized it so beautifully. I'm glad it's all recorded because I wanna grab that later. Very beautifully. Well, first, I'm sure there are ways to reach out to different language, many different language communities, even if they're not organised or structured as a school per se. You find, even if it's just virtual, if there isn't one logistically, geographically very easy next to you, but you can find an organised couple of video calls and some interaction and stuff like that and maybe a visit one time. We have the Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools. We have a website where we gather information. We have language representatives for many languages. We are about, like, if I'm not wrong, 40 plus languages that, we have language representatives for. We have a survey that we publish often with data from schools that work with more than 50 languages.

0:34:47.9 Ana Lucia Lico: So, that's a way that schools can reach, find not reach, can find, and then reach out to them. But nowadays could be Instagram groups, could be Facebook groups, could be websites. It's not very easy. If you go, oh, I need to find a Croatian speaking community next to whatever zip code, go there. It might take a couple minutes and you can even have maybe parents volunteer help you find those, Hey, or even the students. Hey honey, we wanna do say, Norah, you are a student of my classroom. Can you please help me find where the Croatian communities were, do your parents go too? Please help me out. So, they'll love that. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's one way. So, Community-Based Heritage Language Schools are those schools are those initiatives that gather families to meet regularly. Could be on a Friday night, Saturday morning or Sunday morning.

0:35:52.4 Ana Lucia Lico: We normally say Sunday schools, because it's the standard way of saying, but for example, many Brazilian schools, Community-Based Schools, they work on Saturday mornings or it could even be a heritage language that rents a place and meets every Tuesday afternoon after school at a certain place. And those meetings or classes, they are geared toward teaching language and culture in many different ways. There isn't a standard way, we even within a language, there isn't a standard way. What is, what seems to be the most common aspect is everyone there, families, the students and teachers, educators, administrators, would like to somehow provide real life opportunities to the kids in some schools, adults too, in the language, in the native language.

0:37:01.9 Ana Lucia Lico: And that is so precious. Could be special birthday celebrations, or it could be cultural festivities or it could be how, like for example, in Brazil, we have carnival in other South American countries too. So when it's carnival period, what do we teach the kids about Carnival in the different regions of the country? How do they dress? What kinds of music they play? What are the dance, types of dances that people do? So, in the Community-Based School there are few, that are completely connected to the native countries, say department of education and they have a stronger academic component. But regardless, we all aim to provide real life opportunities for the kids and to nurture for kids and families the value of that language and culture.

0:37:54.5 Norah Lulich Jones: That's fabulous. Thank you so much. Where are you headed with this? What are the next steps in what you want to do and share and help to move forward?

0:38:10.3 Ana Lucia Lico: One thing is, I'm gonna continue working for the sustainability of the Brazilian School and work more actively with the umbrella organisation for Portuguese schools, and also help consolidate and expand the work of the coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools. Because the coalition is doing a very impacting grassroots, and work, there is quite a bit of room for us to reach more schools, reach more families, and do more with the ones we already have. I think I believe that the more unite or the more collective is our focus, the stronger we get. There is an African proverb that really summaries my view of life since forever. That it says, if you wanna go fast, go alone. If you wanna go further, go together. To me that's... And so I believe, for instance, we are with this umbrella organisation that works in the US. We we'll be developing some kind of projects together with organisations in Europe. And then to pilot some kind of more connection...

0:39:44.3 Ana Lucia Lico: I myself wanna do more, participate, join more and more programmes that help support families to see that they don't need to empty their suitcases in order to integrate to the new society. We can't erase our histories in order to build somebody else's history. And our personal portfolio, there isn't, you can't tell an adult, forget everything 30, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, whatever the age. And so I wanna write a book. 2025 is my start. It's my new, I can't say it's my new year project because projects for a New Year normally to be left in the shelf. But yeah, I wanna write a book for, to share more about our family's journey, but with summarizing a lot of my experience with heritage, language and culture for families and educators.

0:40:52.6 Norah Lulich Jones: Well, and that image that you have provided several times now that is so powerful that you were blessed to have, when you moved to the United States, you didn't have a spouse that expected you to empty your suitcase. Understood. It couldn't really be. And the important way that you bring back the fact that any culture that expects people to empty their suitcases on behalf of absorbing only the received country is not building at a sustainable future for anyone. Right now my dear friend, what I would love for you to do is have your two sons in front of your mind, in front of your image right now, and I'd love for you to just turn to them again here as we finish up and just say, my dear sons, this is what is on my heart for you, for your heritage, for all we've talked about today and more, what do you say to your sons as our parting time here?

0:42:10.0 Ana Lucia Lico: It's a little challenging because I would not say in English, but I'll try to translate into English. Gabrieli Lucas, I'm so happy that the seed of the Brazilian identity was cultivated in your hearts and grew up to be strong, beautiful, big trees. That is your connection to the Brazilian identity that I see nowadays, and I see your global citizens because of the Brazilian language and culture. This opened up your hearts to other language and cultures. You speak three, four languages now and you're much more tolerant and respectful citizens of the world than I have ever been. So you help me be a better person every day.

0:43:07.2 Norah Lulich Jones: Ana Lucia, is there anything else that you would like to make sure that you say to my audience before we end today? Something that you feel needs to be said again or that was not touched on, that you just want to make sure that people hear?

0:43:28.5 Ana Lucia Lico: There's one aspect, Norah, that I hear all the time. People say, Oh, but it's so difficult. Oh, it takes time. Oh, it takes effort. Even for those who, all you work all day in English, then you get home tired and you have to whatever, cook dinner or do homework with the kids and stuff, or supervise this or that. I think we absolutely have to fight whether it's a little difficult, mildly difficult, or very difficult or hard or challenging, you have to fight to remain living the language and culture that are meaningful to you or to your students. So fight not to accommodate. Fight against supervisor's pressure. Fight against heavy, hectic deadlines, fight against not enough resources, fight against lack of support, and if you feel alone, parent or an educator, look for other schools, look for communities, look for organisations. You are gonna find people like us ready to give you a hug and embrace the journey together.

0:44:54.9 Norah Lulich Jones: Thank you, Ana Lucia. That was an encouragement that I certainly will continue to make with you for the future. The hardest part is not dreaming and bringing into reality the whole identity that we have across cultures around the globe. Thank you for everything that you have shared today.

0:45:21.6 Ana Lucia Lico: Thank you. This has been very, wow, very touching. Very important to me. Thank you, Norah, for the opportunity. 

0:45:30.9 Norah Lulich Jones: Thank you for listening to this conversation with my guest, Ana Lucia Lico. Let us remember the story of how when we welcome those with language and cultures that grow our own knowledge of the world, that we bring a better world about.