On Monday, leading up to National Hispanic Heritage Month, Elle published a conversation between Nina Garcia, the editor and chief, and Sánchez.
When Garcia asked what it was like growing up as a third-generation Latina in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sanchez said it was “amazing.” However, she said she missed out on her grandmother and mother speaking Spanish all the time, which prompted her to take Spanish lessons as an adult.
“The biggest regret I have is not being able to speak fluent Spanish,” Sánchez, a former helicopter pilot and news anchor, told Garcia. Her mother’s decision not to teach her the language was to prevent her from having an accent. “She thought that would hurt me,” she said.
“Now I am taking Spanish lessons, and my kids are taking lessons, because it’s something I crave,” said Sánchez, who has a son with former NFL player Tony Gonzalez and two teenagers with her ex-husband, Patrick Whitesell.
When asked whether she bonds with her fiancée, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, through their respective cultures, Sánchez said, “We bond and clash in the best possible way.”
She gave the example of how Bezos, whose father is Cuban American, only puts sugar on churros. However, she adds cinnamon and chocolate sauce. “It’s little things like that,” she said, adding that they celebrate Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, together every Thanksgiving.
In July, Sánchez discussed her Latina identity with Eve Longoria in a conversation published in The Hollywood Reporter.
“You and I are so proudly Latina. But we’re also proudly American. And we are super assimilated. But we grew up with this hyphen, living in two worlds. And I think many people relate to that, especially Latinos in the United States,” Longoria told Sánchez.
The benefits of bilingualism
Although most Latinos in the US can speak Spanish, 65% of third or higher-generation Latinos said that they struggle to hold a conversation, a 2023 Pew Research study that surveyed 3,029 Hispanics over two weeks in August 2022 found.
However, 78% of Latino adults said that it is not necessary to speak Spanish to be considered Latino, the same survey reported.
Still, knowing two languages has benefits. Melissa Wells, an Afro-Latina American, previously wrote about not understanding her family’s choice to raise her as a bilingual. However, she realized that her fluency in Spanish allowed her to stay close to her Mexican family and communicate with her grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s.
Similarly, Conz Preti, a mother of three, wrote for BI in June that she wanted her children to be bilingual because of all the opportunities the skill had given her. She only speaks to her children in Spanish, while her husband speaks to them in English. By the time they were able to talk, they were bilingual.
Scientists say bilingualism also gives its speakers cognitive benefits. Mariano Sigman, a neuroscientist and author of “The Secret Life of the Mind,” previously told BI that bilinguals have better cognitive control than monolinguals.
Cognitive control refers to the ability to control thoughts, be attentive to a conversation even if someone else is speaking, and persist even when you feel tired, he explained.
“So it’s, in a way, like being pilots of our own existence,” he said.
Sánchez didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside business hours.
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