Harvard-educated doctora of education Vero Benavides has spent her career exploring and advocating for the intersection of identity, language, and learning. Throughout her career in education—as a high school and middle school teacher, a Fulbright scholar, a leadership coach, and the Executive Director of a leading early childhood educational research and training center—she's always sought to create strengths-based environments where all people and children thrive. Now, as founder and CEO of The Language Preservation Project, Dr. Benavides works to support the reclamation and flourishing of heritage languages across global contexts. Through learning resources and cohort-based programs for educators and families, The Language Preservation Project decolonizes language learning to promote bilingualism in homes and schools. In this conversation, Vero and I talk about her own language experiences growing up and what it has been like to speak exclusively in Spanish to her two young children. We also discuss what learning a heritage language means for many people, and how she supports heritage language speakers through her work with The Language Preservation Project. Follow The Language Preservation Project: Website Instagram Facebook   LinkedIn Follow Multilingual Montessori: Website Instagram Consultations Patreon