That's why we spoke only English in Florida :)

As you know, we try to speak only Portuguese at home and not let the boys forget their first language (they didn't know any English until they were 4.5 years old). It's getting harder and harder, though, particularly for our youngest boy, who talks a lot -- he has to think before he tells us things in Portuguese. The boys' language skills would be better if we could travel to Brazil every year, but that's no longer the possible. :(

Why then, would you ask, we spoke mostly English in public with the boys while we were in Florida? Well, well... this may sound ridiculous or crazy, but there were so many Brazilian tourists all around us everywhere we didn't want to: (1) have them overhearing our conversations; (2) be thought of as tourists and not "locals." (K was the one who was most adamant about this & I was the one constantly having to struggle not to speak Portuguese -- he's not too excited about me writing this post. ;)

And why am I sharing this anyway? Because of this report that came on today on CNN's website:

Brazilians LOVE to shop in the U.S. and they come to Florida (and New York city) by the hundreds of thousands every year.

I just didn't know that there were so many wealthy Brazilians buying properties in Miami, but Time Magazine's "2012 User's Guide" should have tipped me off. On p.60, Michael Duffy* posed the 10 multiple choice questions for the readers, #2 was: "The U.S. economic bubble most likely to reinflate is: A. Miami Beach condos, because of record investment by Brazilians." And while that is not the correct answer -- "Iowa and Illinois farmland, because or record corn shortages in China" is -- it's defintely something that's making waves in Florida's economy and, consequently, in the country as a whole.

P.S. I guess another reason for what we did in Florida is that we're identifying less and less with people from our country, which is true, but sad.

* apparently I can't link to this because Time Mag. content is only available for subscribere.