Why I Started Empowered Bilingual

¿Por qué nació Empowered Bilingual?

This wasn’t supposed to be a business.

It was supposed to be survival.

Yo empecé a crear recursos porque no tenía otra opción. I was handed a classroom, a group of brilliant bilingual students—and absolutely no curriculum. No pacing guide. No textbook. No anchor charts. Nada.

I remember standing in front of the whiteboard thinking,"How am I supposed to teach con propósito if I don’t even have the tools?"

So I made them.I built anchor charts with markers on butcher paper. I stayed up late translating social studies materials by hand. I spent weekends creating grammar games, vocabulary slides, poetry prompts… everything.

And I wasn’t doing it for a perfect classroom. I was doing it for my kids—for the ones who spoke Spanish with pride, for the ones who were still learning to love their bilingual voice. Para los que venían de Puerto Rico, de México, de Honduras. Para los que eran chicanos y no sabían bien si “soy de aquí o soy de allá.”

The system was not made for us. So I made something different.

Empowered Bilingual nació en esas noches largas.En los corajes que sentía cuando no encontraba materiales representativos. In the joy I felt when a student said, “Miss, this reminds me of my abuela.”

This isn’t just about worksheets or PDFs. It’s about reclaiming space. It’s about saying: yes, bilingual teachers deserve high-quality, beautiful, culturally grounded resources. We deserve prep materials that don’t make us choose between rigor and identity. We deserve tools that honor where our kids come from and where they’re going.

This space is for you, maestra.

You, who’s translating standards while grading papers during lunch.You, who’s navigating Spanglish with grace, even when others question it.You, who wants more than survival—you want joy. You want purpose.

Empowered Bilingual is for you.

You’ll find resources rooted in cultura. Projects that center student voice. Anchor charts, writing prompts, unit plans… and most importantly: comunidad.

My promise to you

I’ll keep creating from the heart. I’ll keep honoring our languages, our students, and ourselves. And I’ll keep building this space so you never feel like you're doing this alone again.

Porque esto no es solo una tienda.

Es una declaración: Spanglish is power, not a problem.