My entire life, it's been very important to me that I establish my place as a Latina. The reason it's been so important is because I've always been the girl with the light skin, brown hair, and tawny eyes and I wasn't quite dark enough to be immediately recognizable as a Latina, but I was also not blonde haired with blue eyed. I've always felt like I'm caught somewhere in the middle. No one ever really can quite place me. I've always felt like I have no defined place in the world and like I've always had to prove who I was. I don't want that for my girls.

A lot of my Latino friends have told me that I am lucky because I don't understand what it's like to be judged on the color of my skin. This is true. I may not be immediately pigeonholed and discriminated against for being Latina. However, I can't even count how many times someone has shared a Mexican joke or derogatory remark with me, only to be horrified when I explain that I AM Mexican.

With the holidays here, moms just want to do their Christmas shopping as quickly and painlessly as possible...especially when shopping for our babies! While shopping for a baby can be relatively easy because you know they'll hopefully like whatever you give them (as long as it's bright and colorful!), you don't want to overdo it on toys or clothes. Honestly, you want the gift you give your little one to have significance. Even if it's not your baby, you also want the gift to be unique (so that not every other kid has the same thing!), right?

Which is why we've assembled a group of the best gifts for babies we found that are special, personal, and with a little bit of our Latino flair! You can make that little guy or gal in your life happy while showcasing your pride--and your baby's!--in our culture.

What better way to bond with your kids than by teaching them how to speak both Spanish and English?

We're helping you do just that by giving two lucky moms a chance to win the book Bilingual Is Better: Two Latina Moms on How the Bilingual Parenting Revolution is Changing the Face of America, co-written by MamásLatinas' own Roxana A. Soto! She and Ana Flores co-founded the parenting blog Spanglish Baby, meant to encourage parents to speak to their kids bilingually as a means to maintain their culture. Now they've released their first book Bilingual Is Better which teaches parents fun and effective methods to maintaining a bilingual household, as well as teaching their children about Latino culture.

To enter, simply respond to our question in the comments below--it's that simple!

As the mom of a first-grader who's growing up bilingual but goes to an all-English school, this is something that worries me tremendously. Until last year, when she entered kindergarten, my daughter Vanessa was exposed to Spanish the majority of her waking hours. Even though she attended preschool, it was only a few hours a day three times a week and the rest of the time she was home with her Spanish-speaking nanny and, later on, with her Spanish-speaking parents. 

I wasn't too worried about her increased exposure to English (and decreased exposure to Spanish) during kinder because she didn't know how to read or write yet. But now that she does, I feel like I have to work overtime to keep Spanish alive at home.

Possibly the only good thing to come out of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' divorce is the fact that Suri Cruise is now getting to attend one of the top schools in the country, the Convent of the Sacred Heart on the Upper East Side of New York City.

One reason that I personally am excited for the 6-year-old girl is that she'll get to learn Spanish from the first time she steps foot in her kindergarten class. I mean, honestly, what else could a girl in today's Spanish-heavy U.S. culture want?

Well, here's some news I never thought I'd say: Furby's back!

Do you remember Furby? He was the toy behind a 1998 phenomenon that had millions of kids talking with their toys and even more parents being driven crazy because the furry little critter wouldn't ever stop talking. I missed out on the toy way back when but, I have to say, I'm really excited for the fuzzy thing to be back mainly because I am REALLY hoping that he'll be bilingual this time around. 

I was eight years old when my family moved to the United States. It was just my parents, me and my younger brother, who was only 2 at the time. My family adjusted quickly to life in America. I learned English, went to school and pretty much consider myself an American. My parents had a bit of a tougher time learning English, of course, but--despite their heavy accents--they are pretty comfortable with the language now and we often talk only in English when we're all together.

They've adjusted to life here and we all consider ourselves proud Americans. I consider myself as having (mostly) grown up here but my brother, despite being raised by a Cuban father and Russian mother, is the true Gringo of the family.