Taylor Wall, Kadidja el Hadji, Emily Ortiz, Jocelyn Perez, Shannon Dunne

Our project, Living Bilingual, was created for the purpose of bringing awareness of the impact of heritage languages in the lives of current and former SUNY Oneonta students. Living Bilingual is both a website and a blog designed by students that are dedicated to spreading awareness and continuing knowledge on cultural and linguistic heritage and bilingualism. The project first began with a book written by Dr. Maria Montoya and her students in one of her courses in 2015. “Mi Vida en los Estados Unidos” is filled with narratives written by her students to share their experiences with bilingualism and how their experiences have shaped themselves into who they are today. The website was created with the goal of educating others about the struggles of Latino and Hispanic communities, as well as teaching bilingual students about their heritage.  

Currently there are five students working on a website that contains blog posts derived from narratives from both past and current SUNY Oneonta students that vocalize their experiences of being heritage bilingual speakers. Each student creator fulfills a different role in our “Living Bilingual” creative activity. One is the main editor and WordPress manager, another one focus on the visuals and resources to link to our Webpage, and three more are working on content by selecting and translating pieces already written by bilingual students. We will also be adding podcasts to our website that vocalize the stories of Oneonta students and provide greater insight into their experiences. Finally, Living Bilingual will contain an open educational resource OER component to share with educators worldwide that teach heritage language speakers. This information derives from SUNY-Oneonta’s current course: “Spanish for Bilinguals”, which provides Spanish heritage speakers with the opportunity to further their knowledge in their heritage.  

The website is currently private in WordPress, and under construction.  The plan is to make it public in June of 2022 and disseminate it widely among our campus community and to the world using social media.  This creative project belongs to the students and will be sustained through the years to come as more students get involved and take ownership with their own creativity.