"I grew up speaking both languages, and for me that's really important"

Growing up bilingual is not only a practical skill but a way of inhabiting two worlds at once. Speaking both languages means carrying two sets of metaphors, histories, and rhythms, and letting them inform how feelings are named, how stories are told, and how relationships are built. It’s a statement about identity as layered rather than singular, a refusal to choose between heritage and the present. For someone raised between Spanish and English, both are portals: one opens onto family intimacy, inherited memories, and the music of childhood; the other opens onto public life, opportunity, and the broader cultural conversation. The importance lies in the bridge they form.

Bilingualism is often reduced to utility, more jobs, wider audiences, but its deeper value is emotional and ethical. It trains empathy by requiring constant perspective-taking: whose words fit here, which tone belongs to this moment, how to honor the person in front of you. Code-switching becomes an art of care, not just a survival tactic. It also resists erasure. Keeping both languages alive preserves humor that doesn’t translate, blessings that sound right only in a mother tongue, and the cadence of stories that would otherwise flatten.

For an artist, two languages enlarge the palette. Melodies, phrasing, and lyric choices are shaped by the sounds and stresses of each tongue, allowing a single idea to echo differently across cultures. That versatility isn’t merely commercial; it’s a testament to belonging in more than one home. It also carries responsibility: to represent communities faithfully, to open doors for others, and to pass the language on so that it doesn’t become a museum piece.

Calling that dual fluency “really important” is a declaration of value amid pressures to assimilate or simplify. It says that wholeness comes from honoring every voice within you, and that connection is richest when it speaks in more than one key.