Bilingual book tries to span financial fluency gap
Published: November 3, 2009
WASHINGTON No es facil hablar de dinero.
In English this means, it's not easy to talk about money. For many people, the language of money is like trying to learn a foreign language. It can be frustrating.
There are many books that seek to help you learn the language. For this month's Color of Money Book Club pick, I'm recommending a book that literally translates the language of money.
Lynn Jimenez, an award-winning business reporter for KGO Radio 810 in San Francisco, has written "Se Habla Dinero?: The Everyday Guide to Financial Success" (Wiley, $19.95). What's so fabulous about this book is that from the table of contents to the index, Jimenez provides side-by-side Spanish and English translation.
Although anyone will benefit from this basic personal finance guide, Jimenez wrote this bilingual book to appeal specifically to multigenerational Hispanic families.
"Like the U.S. population as a whole, Latinos are feeling the sting of the economic downturn," reports the Pew Hispanic Center. In a January survey, the center noted that 9 percent of Latino homeowners said they had missed a mortgage payment or were unable to make a full payment.
The survey found that Latinos hold a more negative view of their own current personal financial situation than does the general U.S. population. Seventy-six percent of those polled said their current personal finances are in either fair or poor shape. That was compared with 63 percent of the general U.S. population reporting concern about their financial situation.
Despite their financial challenges and concerns, Hispanics are moving into this nation's middle class at a rapid pace, Jimenez writes.
The fastest-growing portion of the Hispanic market is among households earning $50,000 or more a year. Hispanic consumer spending clout will rise from $212 billion in 1990 to a projected $1.4 trillion in 2013, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business.
In her book, Jimenez sticks with the fundamentals. She starts with the mechanics of opening and using bank accounts, then moves on to how to save, pay for college, borrow to buy a home or start a business, purchase insurance and set up a will.
Jimenez customizes the book to make her Latino readers feel included. The personal examples she uses have Hispanic surnames. Instead of the generic Jones family, there's the Vega family, with parents Maria and Jose and son Pedro. There are tips aimed specifically at Latinos. For example, she reminds some that unlike in their native countries, a notario (notary public in the U.S.) is not an attorney ("Un notario no es un abogado"). Law-enforcement officials say some schemers call themselves notarios to take advantage of immigrants who are unaware of the distinction.
Jimenez said she envisions the book being passed along from Latino grandparents who don't speak English to their adult children who may speak some English to adult or young grandchildren, born in the U.S., who may not speak Spanish.
"'Se Habla Dinero?' can be used as a quick reference as your family climbs the financial ladder," she writes. "It is designed to encourage conversations about money between generations."
Michelle Singletary welcomes comments and column ideas but cannot offer specific personal financial advice. Readers can write to her c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071, or e-mail her at
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