Teaser "one language, one life". a feature documentary | Chus Alonso

There are about 400 spoken languages in the United States, making it one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world, while there is not an official language at the federal level.

 Certainly, English is important for anybody who lives in the United States. However, we can all agree that when someone imposes English as the only way of communication, they are not precisely thinking of starting a thoughtful dialogue on multilingualism but rather, devaluating the culture and community of that person, becoming an act of hate.

United States has great linguistic resources. In spite of that, they have always been ignored or even destroyed. It is predominantly a monolingual English-speaking country. The majority of the immigrants do not speak their native languages past two generations.

 There are very few people in this country who are trying to learn non-English languages and even fewer who actually succeed in doing so. 

 Why do all of this happen? 

 Why in the United States multilingualism is not receiving a proper support from the majority of the population or state/federal government?

 The good news is that education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world, as Nelson Mandela said. 

 Aside from English, the most common languages spoken at homes around Chicago are Spanish, Polish, Arabic, Tagalog, and Chinese. In fact, more than 30% of the population of Chicago speaks a language other than English at home. 

In this context in the country, and more specifically in the Chicago area, we will tell the story of Carolina, a dual language Spanish teacher, who leaves Spain, her former country, to move to Chicago, Illinois. Through her eyes and experience we will discover that learning a second language will open doors to another world. In addition, it will help her to find out lots of amazing places and people around the country.

We had many people interviewed, belonging to the Educational Field such as dual language teachers, students, parents, administration or even biliteracy education specialists who will bring their vision on this matter.
 We focus in 2 schools: 
Oakdale Elementary School in Waukegan, a low income neighborhood located on the northern of Illinois, in Chicago area, where our protagonist will work, 
and McGlone Academy, a school in the Montbello neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. 
 Directed, filmed and edited by: Chus Alonso (chus@aluamedia.com) Produced by: Carolina Ruiz and Chus Alonso An ALUA MEDIA Production.