We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lily Hagen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Lily thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Lingo Plaza was born out of a personal pain combined with a passion of cultures I’ve cultivated since a very young age.

For many years, I experienced firsthand the pain points of language and cultural eduction through the lens of both a student and educator, but once I experienced multilingual and multicultural parenting, I discovered more pains, and just like my family, other families were going through the same thing.

My why was not just about unlocking future opportunities for our students – which it is still a big factor – but it also became about identity. Many of our families are with us because they want their children to grow up proud of their roots, of who they are and that includes passing on their heritage language and culture traditions.

We not only focus just on language, we also support our families to help them navigate multilingual and multicultural parenting, which can be very isolating and overwhelming, this is why, we also have a free community where parents can connect, find resources and support each other.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am the CEO and Founder of Lingo Plaza and the WeArePlaza Community. We help bring families together to connect, learn and find resources, so we can all navigate multilingual and multicultural parenting effectively with the the right support system.

I am originally from Colombia and my husband is from the US. For many years we we both worked for an international youth non-profit in South America, North America, Asia and Europe, which inspired us to raise our own children bilingual and cultural competent.

We currently inspire and help families learn and embrace Hispanic Culture and the Spanish language through our free Plaza community, where parents can connect with other parents around the world on the same journey, find resources like our free family events, educational resources to support their families at home, as well as our 1-on-1 gamified immersive Spanish lessons (Ages 4-12) through our Lingo Plaza platform. These lessons are what I like to call the closest to being immersed in a foreign country to learn the language and be in contact with the culture and locals without leaving your house.

For 25 minutes, our students are immersed in a gamified live Spanish lesson with one of our Plaza tutors from Latin America. During this time, they are actively speaking the language, which is indeed solving one of the pain points parents face. You see, many children tend to develop passive bilingualism, which is when they understand the language, but can’t speak it. Being actively speaking the language is crucial to develop fluency. That’s why learning a language in a foreign country is so effective, you have to speak to communicate with people.

Multilingual and multicultural parenting can be a bumpy road – it’s parenting after all – but it can sure get a lot smoother when you find the right support system. This is why we created a safe space for families to connect with others that understand their hardships and celebrate their wins.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The idea of Lingo Plaza came to me during a difficult financial time for our family. My husbands job required a lot of traveling, which made it very difficult for me to find a regular job to help provide financially and finding someone to take care of my children. It was simply impossible and expensive. We lived in LA, and it became a matter of working to live and survive, really.

I started searching for online jobs, which weren’t as common back then, but I got one that was overnight. I worked from midnight to 6 am, but I was able to take care of my kids while they were sleeping and my husband traveling. I did this for 3 years to help support our family and worked extra to fund our MVP. Although, it was indeed some of the most exhausting and difficult times, it truly prepared me to be resourceful and build resilience in the startup world.

I owed it to my children and the families going through the same. The pain was so personal and involved people I cared about, that quitting was simply not an option.

To me and many families, multilingualism and multiculturalism is not just a nice skill that will open up future opportunities. It is for sure a nice perk that this journey brings, which is amazing! To us and our families, it’s about a lifestyle that we live and it’s part of who our children are.

Personally, one of the biggest things I learned is that as we say in Spanish “¡Querer es poder!” which meaning is the same as “Where there is a will, there is a way!” Is it easy for everyone to start a venture? 100% NO! My journey required – and still requires – a lot of sacrifice, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to pay. In some circumstances, when people don’t have the network or funds to start a venture, the sacrifices will be much bigger, so it’s up to us to see if it’s worth paying the cost, and if it is, just keep pressing on.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Learning English back in Colombia as a student was completely different than raising my children to be multilingual and multicultural in a foreign country. I have had to understand that this is a journey and not a sprint or even a marathon. This journey will look very differently for other families including my own. Once I understood that, it became a lot easier for me to understand our families, their circumstances and also how to better support them and guide them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://weareplaza.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lingoplazaofficial/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=lingo%20plaza
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lingo-plaza
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LingoPlaza
• Other: https://lingoplaza.com