Bravery and Bilingualism: Arminda Espinoza's Journey

Keith Haney: 00:00:51

Today on the show, we're honored to welcome Armita Espinosa, a retired bilingual teacher, a proud first generation Mexican American, and author of the heartfelt children's book, Brave Learns English.

Armita's story is deeply personal and powerfully universal, reflecting the emotional and academic journey of millions of English language learners across the country.

Through the eyes of Lois, her young protagonist, Amita brings to life the fears, insecurities and triumphs that come from learning a new language and finding your voice. She's here to share her journey, her inspiration and the technique. She hopes to empower second language learners to embrace their inner strength.

Amita lives in Fresno, California with her husband Leonard and the three Furry champions, Luna Soul and Cutie Boy. Welcome to the show, Armita.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:01:45

Thank you for having me, Keith. It's a pleasure.

Keith Haney: 00:01:47

So good to have you on. I'm not sure why your husband's name was a. Was a tongue twister, but this morning it was.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:01:56

It was a tongue twister for my mother who didn't speak English. So bad.

Keith Haney: 00:02:00

Yeah. But some of the, some of the names we come up with in America are somewhat challenging.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:02:05

They are.

Keith Haney: 00:02:07

So I'm going to ask you my favorite question. What's the best piece of advice you ever received.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:02:14

To be authentic? Be myself. Did I follow that rule? No, I didn't. I finally, now in my 60s, I'm like, okay, I get it. Important to be yourself, be authentic to.

Keith Haney: 00:02:31

Do that, because there's so much pressure to conform to what other people want you to be that it's just hard to kind of sit in your own self. Because if you're not yourself and if someone doesn't like, you can say, well, that wasn't really me.

They didn't like the person I was pretending to be.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:02:45

That exactly. Good point, good point. But you're right. Yes. I think as wisdom, with age comes wisdom.

And do you see the advice that you receive with different eyes through a different lens?

Keith Haney: 00:02:59

I think as you get older too, you just care a lot less what people think, which also helps.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:03:05

I like that the older I get.

Keith Haney: 00:03:08

The less I care what you think about me.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:03:11

I like that.

Keith Haney: 00:03:14

I'm curious, as you think about your journey and your life, are there people in your life who served as an inspiration or mentor for you on your journey?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:03:23

Yes.

You know, and looking back, talking about being authentic and being ourselves, the two inspirational people that just of course, dear to my heart of my parents, because I look back at their life and how they lived it, and they were certainly authentic. They lived their lives and like you said what other people thought about them.

It really didn't take center stage as much as just being themselves and moving through life in that fashion.

Keith Haney: 00:03:53

I love that. So tell us a bit about your journey from first generation Mexican American, how it shaped your career as a bilingual teacher.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:04:03

Yes, it's been an interesting journey. My parents are from Mexico. Were from Mexico. They have both passed away now. So I was first generation.

And I'll be honest with you, going into school was a challenge because although I was the youngest of six, so I had siblings that by the time I went into kindergarten, I spoke quite a bit of English. It might not have been high academic level, but I certainly had a good foundation of English skills.

But once I got into school and all the academics started hitting me, it really took a toll on me to really, you know, talking about how we. We allow people's perceptions of ourselves impact how we think about ourselves. And so that's exactly what happened with me.

That's exactly what happened.

Keith Haney: 00:04:58

So one of our ministries here in Iowa, we have a Hispanic pastor who's doing ESL classes as a way for our churches to connect with their community. And he talks about, you know, how.

How difficult it is sometimes to get those going and how hard is for, I think, people who don't speak the language to understand the difficulty of doing that.

I'm just curious as you I've taken as a pastor, I had to learn to do Greek and Hebrew, and that was hard to try to learn a second language because I'm always trying in my head to translate it into English as opposed to, you know, just taking what it was and living with it was always like, what does this mean in English?

And I'm curious for you, as you're trying to do that, as a ESL teacher person who's bilingual, what are some of the challenges that we don't even imagine in learning a new language in a new country?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:05:53

Well, I think what happens is, because they say if you have a second language, your mind is working double, right? I mean, it's switching back and forth between the two languages. And without a fa.

Without a. I mean, it would be logical that when you hear something in a different language, right away you go to the language that you do know and you try to make the connection, right? That's like. That happens. And. And really that's what we're supposed to be doing in learning a second language. You know, go.

Go to the language that you have and try to figure out and understand the message or the. What you're trying to learn. So that was the same thing for me. But I think what happened for me was. Well, not what I think what happens for me.

What happened to me was a negative voice started talking to me, my inner voice. And I started paying attention to it out of fear and out of nothing, the not the unknown.

I really took comfort in that little voice that was talking to me and not giving me the best advice. Although at the time it seemed like pretty good advice.

Keith Haney: 00:07:03

Did you. Do you feel awfully lonely when you're trying to do this?

Because if your parents maybe weren't native speakers, it's probably hard for them to help you process this. So you're kind of doing this on your own as you're kind of making that transition.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:07:19

Yes, exactly. And that's what I did. And it's kind of interesting in the fact that I had older siblings, five older siblings.

I never asked them how they moved through their educational. I never did. I kept it to myself. And of course we didn't have books at our home. Our parents.

My parents didn't speak English some, so they really couldn't help. And so I. I really just felt like I was on my own to just figure it out.

And like I said, I had a little voice in the back of my head that was guiding me and I was listening to it and I just thought, this is normal. I assumed this was normal.

Keith Haney: 00:08:01

Right. So tell us about your book. What inspired you to write your book?

And tell us the title of it again, because I'm sure I murdered the name of person in your book.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:08:11

Yes, the title is Brave Lollies Learns English. Lollies and Lollies is an abbreviation of Dolores, which is my mom's name. So it's in honor of my mother. But this story, I, you know, I went into.

Into education and I retired as a teacher. And I had always loved to write. So I had always written stories, children's stories, but I had only written them for myself.

The only person that I would read, that I would let read my stories was my husband. Because he was a safe space. Right.

And so I assumed, I just figured when I retire, I'm going to just hide away in my little cocoon and just write my little heart away. And I'm good. But it was during COVID and it never occurred to me, but the thought did at that time to take a children's writing class.

So I thought, why not invest in myself, right? And so I took a class and they encouraged me to self publish a story. And this story I was meditating One day.

And this experience that I had in first grade kept popping up. And I really thought I had Left that behind 69 years ago, 64 years ago. And.

But the story, the experience kept popping up, and I just thought to myself, oh, my goodness. I just assumed I had gotten over it. And then I. The story came to life. And the story was. If you would like me to go.

Keith Haney: 00:09:42

Into the story, I'd love to hear the backdrop.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:09:45

Yeah. The story was first day of school, first grade, new school, new teacher. So I don't know any students there.

We had just moved into a new housing development, and. And the teacher pulls me back to the back of the room, and she's testing me on my ABCs. Kindergarten teachers, first grade teachers, we all do that.

I get stuck at G now. I don't know if I. I'm thinking. I think I knew my ABCs, but I think I just got nervous. You know how you say abcdefg? And then there's like, moment.

And I just didn't know what came after that. I just got stuck. And the longer the time lapsed, the more nervous I got. And so eventually the teacher allowed me to go back to my desk.

The embarrassment and the shame that I felt at that moment because the teacher was writing something on her pad, and I just thought, this is not good. Now she knows I'm not smart. All the other students, they all were smiling and they all seemed to be having a good time.

And I just figured I'm the only one that doesn't know my ABCs, and I need to figure it out fast.

Keith Haney: 00:10:56

Wow. So this book was kind of a reflection of that story for you. Who are you writing to?

And what do you hope when they pick up this book, they understand about the journey that you went through? And other second language speakers are endearing as well.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:11:12

Yes. I like this message. The message is that we all go through this, not only second language learners, but when we're lifelong learners.

And whenever you're learning something new, that little voice is going to pop up.

And all of us, that the minute it becomes challenging, that voice is going to tell us this is perhaps something that you will never learn, so you need to just move on to something else. Right. I mean, because it's that negative voice that just sits in and it just repeats itself over.

The more challenging we be, the more of a challenge it is to learn what we're learning, the louder that little voice gets. So my message is that we all have that negative little voice. We don't have to let it Consume us. We don't have to listen to it. Yes, it's there.

But we can switch our thinking from a negative thought to a positive thought. Something as simple as learning addition is easy and fun.

Just so that we could change that voice, that message that we're getting so that we could continue to push through the challenge and learn what we're needing to learn.

Keith Haney: 00:12:27

I'm curious as a teacher who's going to maybe have all of a sudden, for the first time in their class, someone who's English is not their first language.

What are some tips that you would have for teachers who go, I'm not sure what to do, how to do this, how not to alienate people, how not to put the experience that you've experienced on a new child coming into her class or his or her classroom.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:12:50

So teachers can easily pair children up with other children who have a similar language for support.

And just by the fact that the teacher, because all of my teachers are very supportive all along the way and I will say didn't experience anything negative from any of my teachers. But what was louder in my voice was my negative voice. My self talk that was the loudest thing and I listened to it through high school. Not good.

But in any event for teachers, they can pair children up with other children who have a similar language for support and just give them time to process.

If a child is not raising their hand with an answer right away, it doesn't mean that they're not understand, it just means that it's taking them some time to process and to get comfortable with the environment, get comfortable with the language. Because children, nobody wants to put themselves out there in an embarrassing situation. So they're going to hold back. So let's give them that space.

Keith Haney: 00:13:55

So I'm curious, as you think about your journey, what was the emotional toll that you talk a little bit about how it impacted you for such a long time?

How did you deal with that emotional toll as you're kind of learning to go through education system because you became a teacher, so obviously you wanted to go back and do that for someone else. So how did you navigate all of that?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:14:17

Well, I gotta tell you Keith, in all honesty, I did not do well. I mean in that first grade I, the little boys got the best of me. So by the second grade I was academically behind.

I didn't know what else to do because the longer I went to school, the each year I got academically further and further behind, my confidence became lower and lower.

My anxieties, my, my fears, my embarrassment to com, to confront or to share out with anybody that I didn't know what I was doing, that I needed help. It never occurred to me to take that leap of faith and just ask for help. I just thought I was creating a little cocoon where I was safe. And I was.

And I gotta admit, did I cheat. I cheated. I cheated a lot in school because I. It was a survival skill for me, which of course then adds to the guilt and the shame. Right, right.

Because, you know, you're not supposed to be cheating, but I don't know what else to do. But, you know, but I know I need to get through it.

So by the time I graduated from high school, I was reading probably about a third or fourth grade level. I was pretty academically very, very low.

And it wasn't until I married in my early 20s that I was very fortunate to have met my husband in high school. He was fourth generation, a big difference. He had a vision.

He knew he was going to go graduate from high school, go to college, become a teacher, get his doctorate. I mean, he had his whole life planned.

I was just trying to get through high school, just doing my best to get through high school, and never thought that I would ever go to college because I just assumed, why would I continue to put myself in that predicament after 12 years of that embarrassing and shame that I went through? But what I saw in him was when he was going to college, I saw him and his buddies getting together and helping each other.

They were rewriting their term papers and typing their term papers and correcting their grammar. And it occurred to me I had never asked for help.

And I realized that I myself had created such a world of my own little safety world that I had damaged or hurt myself right academically. And it was then that I thought, wow, if I asked for help, maybe I could learn.

And so I started at the community college, and my husband helped me a lot. I asked for a lot of help from the professors, teachers, my husband, and. And I started changing my mindset.

Keith Haney: 00:17:19

So you mentioned earlier in our. In our discussion about the inner voice that was telling you that you weren't ready, that you weren't smart, that you need to cheat.

So what techniques do you suggest to people who are second, you know, second language learners to quiet the inner voice, or at least to maybe tame it. You may not be able to quiet it, but how do you tame that inner voice?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:17:41

Yes.

So first of all, just acknowledging that we all have that voice that pops up whenever we're learning something new and this is a conversation that teachers could have which would be so impactful for all their children, not just second language learners, but even just English only students.

Letting them know that if you're trying to learn a math edition and you have this little voice because we hear children say to ourselves, I can never learn, I can't learn this. This is too hard. I mean they're verbaliz the I can'ts at that.

That's a perfect time for a teacher to have a conversation with the child and say, look, I too, when I'm trying to learn something new and it's hard, I have a little voice in my head that tells me I can't learn it. I said, but I have, I have to just quiet that voice and I have to change what I tell myself. I have to tell myself that learning math is easy and fun.

Just that little switch so that we could continue to stay focused and push through.

But having that conversation with children, that I too as an adult always have that voice and what I do to change it so that I could push through just that simple conversation is so powerful with all of our children.

Keith Haney: 00:19:06

I always think book titles are so critical and you have the title Brave. So describe to me when you thought about that, that term brave, you could have picked a bunch of words to kind of put in your title.

What does bravery mean in the context of second language learners?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:19:23

So bravery in the context of second language learners or for anybody that's learning anything that is challenging is just to have the brave. To be brave enough to have the courage to have the courage to know that, yes, I don't know this yet, but it doesn't mean I can't learn it.

And yes, I have that little voice that's popping up that saying I'm not going to be able to learn it. But guess what? I don't have to listen to it. I could be brave enough to switch my thinking and keep moving forward because eventually I will learn it.

It's just going to take a little longer. So just that little conversations with ourselves.

Keith Haney: 00:20:04

That is, that is so critical. So is there other books in the works for you or is this like a series of books on this or what's next?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:20:12

Well, I did do a second book. It's called Brave Lolis and Her Box of Hope.

icane that hit Puerto Rico in: 2017

So that's the second book that came out in 23 and I have a third book that's coming out probably in January or February, but it is a completely different story and it has, it's not part of the sequel.

Keith Haney: 00:20:53

I love that. So as you say you self published your first book. What was the most challenging part?

For those who are thinking I want to write a book and especially in the children's space, what was some of the things you had to overcome?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:21:06

Well, I was very fortunate when I took that one class through coach on writing for children, I ended up signing up with a program. It's a hybrid publisher out of Canada and they help you publish your own book, so you own all the rights.

So I got to tell you, they were a blessing because I learned they took us through all the steps and they have helped publish all three of my books. I'm not tech savvy, so I understand my limitations.

I could write a story and with their help, their, the help of their editors, I could really make it a good strong story.

But all of the other pieces behind that, there is a lot I could take a lifetime to have learned or you know, I was fortunate to be in a position to be able to pay for the program and have them do all the stuff on the background.

Keith Haney: 00:22:04

Yeah, because I mean with a kids books you have to have illustrators and typeset. All that was kind of.

I'm sure that's I just did a book but I didn't have any illustrations in it because I'm like just a whole nother level of production there.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:22:17

Yes it is. And so they guided me.

And what was really good about that program was it had a tight timeline so it kept me on track because otherwise I could easily procrastinate and still not have gotten a book out as of right now. But they, they keep me on a timeline and they guide me through everything.

And aside from the illustration illustrator that I had to find on my own, they provided all the other logistical pieces to self publishing a book. And so I was very fortunate that Brave Lolis has sold over 9,000 books in two and a half years. And so I'm very proud of that.

Keith Haney: 00:23:02

So how long did it take you to write the book? Just out of curiosity.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:23:06

So the minute that when I was meditating in that experience came up, it took me a day or two to write the bones of the story and share it with the editor. And it probably took about two months to really nail it and really clean it up with Their guidance.

And then it took about nine months to do all the other pieces. You know, the finding the illustrator, giving the illustrator time to do the illustrations, which took about three months. So it's a long process.

It's not something that happens overnight. But within a year, the first book was published.

Keith Haney: 00:23:46

What kind of feedback are you getting on your book?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:23:50

Getting really good feedback.

As a retired educator, both my husband and I here in the San Joaquin Valley, we, over our course of our career, we've had an opportunity to have met and, and learned, worked with a lot of districts and administrators. And so that has really opened the doors for me because of the relationships that we've built throughout the course of our career.

And so, yes, I work with a lot of the big districts here in the Valley. And so now I'm trying to push myself out of the Valley, out of the Central Valley. But it's gotten very good responses here in the Valley.

Keith Haney: 00:24:28

So here's your chance to pitch the educators. Why should they buy your book?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:24:33

So they're the reason they should buy the book. I mean, and, you know, the message is just helping children with that negative voice that we all have. Right.

So, and as I said that even though Lolis was. The title was Babe, Lolis learns English, it really was just because we are all learning English when we're out in kindergarten. Right.

It's not just whether you're a second language learner or just an English learner. You're still learning English. So it really is applicable to all children in whatever they're learning, whatever it is that they're learning.

Keith Haney: 00:25:12

That's great. Great message. So I love to ask my guest this question, what do you want your legacy to be?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:25:19

My legacy? I would love my legacy to be had. Somehow I made. I left the world just a little bit better.

Keith Haney: 00:25:28

That's great.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:25:30

Than when I first got here.

Keith Haney: 00:25:32

So in season six of the podcast, you're doing something a little different. We're gonna have a surprise question. Pick a number between one and four for your surprise question.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:25:42

Okay, I'll take four.

Keith Haney: 00:25:45

All right. What things do you do every day that you wish you could automate?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:25:54

That I wish I could automate. That's a good question. It's still a challenge, but I would love to be able to automate that. It comes on on an automatic, for me is positive talk.

Keith Haney: 00:26:12

Oh, okay.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:26:14

Positive self talk. Because that negative talk still pops up on a regular basis.

So if I could have positive self talk constantly generated throughout the day, I think I could do pretty good.

Keith Haney: 00:26:29

Yeah, you could sell that too. You just get a button that everybody could push that would just automatically positive talk your day through. Yeah.

So if you invent that, you let me know and come back on the podcast and we'll talk about how you're doing a positive talk button.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:26:43

So I gotta tell you, I made these, this bracelet, and it says, what are you thinking? Because we get. We're bombarded with thoughts throughout the day, millions of thoughts throughout the day.

And a lot of times we just move through the day and we don't give much thought to those thoughts that are just in the background. So whenever I look down at my bracelet, I take a second and I ask, what am I thinking at this very moment?

If the thought is a negative thought, I switch it to a positive thought and then I move on. So it keeps me alert to constantly check in with myself on what am I thinking.

Keith Haney: 00:27:27

That's a good one. I like that. So where can people find your bracelet?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:27:32

Well, I gotta say, I, I give them away whenever I do presentations, but folks can just, you know, you could get online and you could just. I never thought about marketing them, but you could certainly just buy them from whoever makes these little. They're little plastic bracelets. Right.

Or you could even make a little bracelet with. You know how you go into art stores and they have the little letters where you could write your. Put your name together.

You could just get a string and write, you know, what are you thinking? And put that on there. Right.

Keith Haney: 00:28:07

Where can people find your books and connect with you on social media?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:28:11

Yes. So Armita Spinoza, author, on Facebook. And my book sells on Barnes and noble or armitaspinoza.com the book is on Amazon, of course. And so. Yes.

Keith Haney: 00:28:23

Well, thank you. I mean, as we wrap up this conversation, what key takeaways do you want to leave with the audience who listen to us today?

Arminda Espinoza: 00:28:33

Key takeaway is that don't underestimate the thoughts that are running through our head that we're not paying attention to. They're impacting us. We need to be mindful of our thoughts because if we're not mindful of our thoughts, we're losing out on life.

Keith Haney: 00:28:58

Yeah, that's really good. Well, thank you so much for taking the time.

Thank you for what you do, for raising awareness of what it means to be a second language person and the bravery it takes to take on the challenge of learning a new language and navigating through the education system. And I'm sure this book will inspire a lot of kids who are doing negative self talk about trying to navigate. This is.

I mean, because it is a brave process to take on something new and to try to learn content in a second language. So I commend anybody who's trying to do that. So thank you for raising that awareness for us.

Arminda Espinoza: 00:29:36

Thank you for having me, Keith. It's been a pleasure.

Keith Haney: 00:29:38

Thank you.