We were lucky to catch up with Kami Anderson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kami thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

When I was a middle school teacher, I had a student. We’ll call him Kenny for this story. The summer prior to coming into my Spanish class, he JUST learned to match consonants to sounds. LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR: he just learned that when he sees the letter “b” it makes the buh sound and when he sees the letter “h” it makes the ha sound. They wanted to pull him out of my Spanish class.

I sat down with his IEP and my textbook and differentiated EVERY single lesson for him. Not only did he not need it, but at the end of the school year, his state assessment grades went up by 11 points in reading — 11 POINTS! For a little Black boy who was about to be written off in language being told “language is too hard for you” he did better on his reading assessment than his peers who were not in my class but only getting the weekly remediation for reading in English.
Now that makes me a BAD MAMA JAMMA, but it more importantly makes him a ROCKSTAR because of language.

We have seen the writing on the wall: Everything is now being translated, there is an increase of language infusion in multiple languages in food labeling, street signs and billboards. There is way that we need to use language learning as a way to change our position for the future so that Black people are not further pushed out of the margins. After teaching world language in public school, I saw there was a disconnect between in particular, Black students in the language classroom. When I taught, I centered our cultural history, reminding my students that Black have always been a multilingual people.

When I made the decision to go from academia to my own company, I had been studying and researching this for years. The current systematic constructs that exist in language education don’t work for well for Black students. As much as world language teachers want to believe that they “touch us all,” Black students are sitting in language classes right now and the teacher, tutor, virtual language mentor that is walking them through is clear that their job is NOT to make them fluent nor are they taking into consideration the magical ways we as Black people have always manipulated language for our self-expression.

We bring our souls to everything we do; language is not excluded from that. We bring the soul to language.
As someone who has been in academia through the classroom, administratively, and whose language ability has been the deciding factor in EVERY single job I’ve had since I graduated with my BA, TRUST ME. I know exactly what I am talking about.
More than just the obvious – there’s the undercurrent of strengthening our own racial identity because of language and how we see how others see us through language.

When we speak folks get lost in our style, but the way language learning is set up, we have no soul in how we speak in different languages. They can’t teach that to us. That’s the need I want to address. I see language as an empowerment tool. I seek to answer every day: How can we use language in order to empower Black children and students in ways that will give them a competitive advantage?

The USA, is way behind in this when it comes to language. They use bilingualism as both a tool to disenfranchise and a tool to set up exclusion. The “they” in a general sense think they have us convinced language learning and in essence, bilingualism isn’t for us. But I know better and YOU know better. There is a power in us being able to connect through the Diaspora through language.

I tell people all the time I am recruiting for a Black Linguistic Army — fortified with language to change how we learn and quite frankly how we are taught.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a sassy mom of four who has been raising my children bilingual since birth. Although not Latinx myself, my work experience in relief and development as well as my classroom experience teaching languages helped me to see language as a means of connecting the African Diaspora. So when my oldest son told me he didn’t like speaking Spanish because nobody “that looked like him” was speaking Spanish, I IMMEDIATELY saw the life’s mission for Bilingual Brown Babies: to increase the number of African American bilingual families so my children and their children could have a language community that reflects their culture back to them.

I have written and published curricula for Spanish and French that teach both language and Black History. Not only do you get vocabulary, but you get the lesser-known Black history of countries like Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela. For me, it helps to paint the broader picture for Black children and families that multilingualism is our birthright, something that we have done even before our period of enslavement, which is usually the starting point for who we are in schools. For my French curriculum, you see African History BEFORE colonialism as well as during and after.

I think this is what sets me apart from other language programs. This focus on Black history and intentionally centering Black identity in language learning is a refreshing alternative for Black families that really want their children to get language AND fortify particular cultural connections in order for them to show their children what globalism looks like on them.

This is also what I am most proud of. I have created and am sustaining a beloved language community, to borrow from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Dr. Howard Thurman. A community that uplifts Black children and brings voice to the African Diaspora.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I really had to take baby steps with a business coach. But the skills she helped me with were all on social media. Her advice seems really simple but is also easier said than done: Put yourself out there. Don’t wait for the fresh hairstyle, make-up or best clothes. Be you and deliver your skills. I had to get out of my own way just to do my first post.

I went live on one platform first and then expanded to others. There are some I still haven’t quite gotten used to yet, but I keep at it. Some days, content comes to me right away, other days, I have to think long and hard about what I want to post. But end the end, I always post.

It was one of the best lessons I could have gotten from my business coach. Most of my clients are thanks to my online presence.

All of that to say, if there was advice I would give it would be two things: invest in a GOOD coach. Not just someone who will give a “quick fix formula” to follow. Someone who will take serious time looking at you AND your business. There’s so much wisdom in sitting still and letting somebody give you perspectives that grow you AND your business.

Second, try with grace. Put yourself out there and be okay with and accept the missteps and mistakes that may happen. Let them all grow you, not stop you.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think like everybody else, the pandemic was a major pivot for my business. But I also think I was one of a few industries where the pivot was for the better.

Being an educational service, I became a hot commodity! With the virtual learning space literally exploding overnight because of COVID, I had an opportunity to assess and realign my business in real-time. Granted in doing that, you hit a couple of bumps, but overall, it really helped me to see the ways in which I could be available to families even beyond the pandemic.

I created intergenerational classes online, I added the French language, and I even designed and began to administer my own CLEP exam (a way to test into upper-level language classes in college) for homeschoolers so they could have a reputable examination to add to their language portfolios for college entry.

While all of this was happening in my business, I was pivoting personally too. Relocating to a new city, intentionally starting a new life as a single parent, and all of the challenges that come with “starting anew” were also sitting in my lap in the midst of a pandemic, business changes, and the needs of my own children.

But in all honesty, I wouldn’t change any bit of it. Yes, there were places where I fell short in my business, but I stayed transparent with my clients and followers and ask for the same grace I offered them in our sessions. It has really strengthened my relationships with my clients and really helped how they even see themselves in their language journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bilingualbrownbabies.net
• Instagram: @bilingualbrownbabies
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bilingualbrownbabies
• Twitter: @bilingualitos
• Other: www.kamijandersonphd.com

Image Credits
Knack Video + Photo Kami Anderson