#language-and-identity

#language-and-identity

Some people mistake writer Junot Diaz, 56, for a rock star even though he doesn't look like one. The writer who does look like one and who also wanders the halls is Mariana Enriquez, with her gray hair and black clothes. The Argentine is another illustrious participant in the Cosmopoetica Festival, which ended on October 5. What the audacious Leiva fan doesn't know is that he's standing before a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

The common storyline is compelling: Bilingual children are "smarter," more adaptable, and very likely to succeed in life. Cognitive scientists have even coined the term "bilingual advantage," claiming that constant language switching strengthens the brain's executive functions, a set of skills we use for planning, self-control, and problem-solving. There is truth here. Many studies show that bilingual children outperform their monolingual peers in certain tasks-specifically in task-switching, attentional control, and cognitive flexibility.