Meet Yolanda Borrás | Bilingual Educator, Founder of I’m Bilingual! Languages Through Music®

We had the good fortune of connecting with Yolanda Borrás and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Yolanda, what do you want people to remember about you?
There is so much each of us can do in a lifetime, and yet we’re all limited by having only one lifespan to accomplish our goals. Some people change the world; others impact their community. Still others transform their local neighborhood or raise a family according to their values.

As for me, it is my mission to impact the world through education.

My first joyful childhood memory is related to teaching. I can still see the scene: There they were, my cousins, sitting in small chairs, and me standing in front of the room as their teacher. I was not even 8 years old, but I had already found my path.

As a teenager, I volunteered in an orphanage to help children with their homework, and to teach them English. After graduating from high school and college I began teaching formally in school settings wherever I was living around the world. Later I created my own business, I’m Bilingual! Languages Through Music, where I taught children and later developed the company toward the goals of creating books, videos, supportive materials and training sessions to teach teachers how they could become empowered to transform their own students’ lives through music and languages. It is safe to say that every professional activity in my life has been related to music and language education.

Education is the essence of my reason to live, and so it is also surely the essence of my legacy. For more than 30 years I have taught children and adults. I have conveyed to them my love and passion for music and its importance for the development of human beings. I hope that some of my teachings have made their lives happier and more meaningful. My experiences living in the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and the United States have proven to me the power of music as a much-needed bridge to understanding other people and their cultures. It’s a way to see and celebrate our differences and our similarities. In so doing, it helps us to be more accepting of others.

In thinking about my personal legacy, I hope that people will remember how much passion I put into my work and that they found me to be a person of integrity, authenticity, and high standards.

Receiving letters, messages and testimonials from teachers, parents and students who have now become grown adults, has been the greatest gift of my life. At the end of the road, I want to be able to say to myself, “I have given my all, and now they can continue to pass it on to others.” To be able to say that sentence in complete honesty is what I hope my final legacy will be.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I’m Bilingual! introduces young children to the world of languages through music. It was the first program to offer music and language classes in seven languages for babies to preschool age children in New York City. Walking through the I’m Bilingual! classrooms felt like taking a mini tour around the world. Today, I’m Bilingual! specializes in products and workshops in the Spanish language.

My business is a reflection of my life’s journey. From my earliest childhood memories in the Dominican Republic, I loved music. My mother’s family was very musical, and all my grandmother’s siblings played an instrument. My father was a lover of music, literature, history, and poetry, and, when I was a teenager, he took me along to hear classical concerts in Santo Domingo. I grew up speaking three languages, Spanish, English and French, attended Peabody Conservatory and Columbia University Teachers College and felt that I had achieved my dreams. As a bonus, I had the wonderful opportunity to live around the world and experience the music of other cultures. These life experiences had a huge impact in my work. But it turned out that there were much bigger dreams awaiting me.

My mission is to open a musical world to educators, especially the music and culture of Spanish-speaking countries and cultures. I believe that music is a powerful tool that transforms lives. It also builds bridges and opens the hearts of people. Music is the basis of everything I do, both in my work with teachers in the United States and in my activities in the Dominican Republic. That is why I aim to provide teachers with a glimpse into the history and culture of the Spanish-speaking world using traditional songs, fun and engaging activities and other educational tools to help open up the world to children. These elements are at the core of my training workshops.

Getting to where the brand is today was always joyful, but never easy. Starting a business from the ground up, with $1,000 dollars in the bank and a dream to create something unique in a city of more than eight million people was a huge challenge.

My passion for music and belief in myself helped overcome any initial obstacles. Perhaps the biggest challenge I faced was having to navigate in the stormy waters of the great economic recession that began in 2008. It affected just about everyone in New York City and it made me stop to redefine what my core strength was, and how I was going to weather this storm. That was when I’m Bilingual! focused itself on specializing in Spanish, and by using music to teach the language, it offers a unique product in the market today. This decision to focus I’m Bilingual! solely on Spanish kept us afloat and helped differentiate us from other businesses which eventually closed. In the wake of the economic downturn, what began as a crisis for my company turned into a game-changer.

The pandemic was another great challenge, to people, to businesses, to the entire world. For me personally, however, it was one of the most prolific times of creativity for I’m Bilingual! When everything shut down, I began offering live Instagram classes for children who tuned in from Europe, North and South America. I had never done a live class on social media, but jumped into this unique opportunity and, with the help of my partner, our home became a mini broadcasting studio. Even though I had never studied puppeteering, I hired a professional puppeteer maker to create puppets of the three main characters of I’m Bilingual! and introduced them to the world. Now they are the protagonists of most of our videos and children love them! Teaching on Zoom, creating videos for the New York Public Library, teaching live for daycare centers and preschools in New York City represented new challenges, and yet they became the highlights of the pandemic years.

I have always taught my sons that there is a hidden lesson within every experience in life. The challenge is to identify that lesson and learn from it. I have learned the importance of simply being open to possibilities. That includes meeting new people, nurturing an open mind, being flexible to try new ideas, avoiding patterns, and being receptive to new approaches, products or tendencies that I notice.

As of today, I’m Bilingual! has won 14 awards for its bilingual books and musical collection that provide teachers with tools and resources to incorporate music and languages into the classroom. Supporting videos make it possible for any teacher or homeschool parent to introduce these activities immediately into their daily routines. Teachers who participate in my conference presentations or teacher-training workshops often write to tell me of how they have successfully utilized our resources in their classrooms. Periodically I receive videos from proud parents showing me their children, as they make music along with the videos posted on the I’m Bilingual! social media platforms or our YouTube channel. Videos and messages from parents and teachers fill me with joy and satisfaction, and they help give meaning to my life’s work. If everyone learns, everyone grows. That’s how everyone wins, and that is my definition of success.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Since I love art, music and cultural events, I would propose a mini cultural tour that would include a visit to the Denver Art Museum to see the collection of American Indian art, which is so unique. After the museum we could hop over to visit the Tea at the Brown Palace for some delicious hot tea.

I am a lover of pastry, so a stop at Bakery Four is going to be a must at some point. The thought of a hot flaky croissant with a cup of coffee or any of the selections of cruffins are making me hungry already!

In the evening, I would certainly look for any concerts being held by the Colorado Symphony at the Boettcher Concert Hall. For those who have never been, it would be a musical and visual experience since it was the first “in the round” symphony hall in the USA.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My passion for music and education has been my North star, but as we all know, passion is not enough to take you where you want to go. We don’t walk this journey alone.

Throughout my life I have had the support of friends and family members, including my children. When I embarked on the creation of I’m Bilingual! Languages Through Music® in Manhattan, I received the support of numerous friends who then referred other friends to the bilingual music classes we offered. Advertising is one way to get grow a business, but word of mouth from friends, clients and “sneezers” are the best! My partner has been a strong believer in my work. He has encouraged me and guided me as I take my business to the next level.

Several books that impacted me and transformed my thinking are: Seth Godin’s Purple Cow, The E-Myth, Blink, Blue Ocean Strategy, You are a Brand and most recently Business Made Simple. From these books I learned how to build a business that would stand out in New York City and that would be later featured in NY1 News, the New York Times, TimeOut NY and other important magazines in the city. Thanks to those books, I learned to swim in my own blue ocean and create a space for my business to thrive in one of the greatest cities of the world.

Being selected to participate in the Columbia Community Business Program for Entrepreneurs at The Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia Business School was also a transformational experience. I thank the Small Business Administration in New York City, who referred I’m Bilingual! to be a part of this amazing program.

My special shoutout goes to the Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer in Lafayette, Colorado for their amazing dual language immersion program. I know of their extraordinary work through one of their teachers Laura Ramírez De Castro. Pioneer Elementary School is preparing children to live in a bigger world, to have more opportunities in life and to be more understanding of others’ cultures. Go Pioneer!

Website: www.imbilingual.com

Instagram: @imbilingualeducation

Linkedin: Yolanda Borrás https://www.linkedin.com/in/yolandamborras/

Twitter: imbilingualny

Facebook: I’m Bilingual! Languages Through Music @imbilingualeducation

Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/imbilingualny1