El futuro habla muchos idiomas. 我们的未来是多语的. Notre avenir est multilingue.
NEWSFLASH: The Foundation for New American Art is honored to announce that we have been awarded a 2026 Cultural Development Fund (CDF) grant from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), in partnership with Mayor Zoran Mamdani. This award, bolstered by the CreateNYC Language Access Fund, is a powerful affirmation of our mission: using bilingual arts education to build belonging, confidence, and possibility for our city’s children.
To me, this work is deeply personal. I heard French as a baby. That is my heritage – my Acadian and Abenaki ancestors crossed the northern border seeking opportunity. I know the heartbreak and resilience of those immigrants. My journey as a musician led me to Europe and eventually to China, where I fell in love with the 音乐(yīnyuè – music) of Mandarin. Language, to me, has always been friendship and possibility—it’s how we ask the universe for what we want. It’s why in our classrooms, we don’t just teach words—we unlock worlds.
Our teaching is built on three ideas:
First, it’s a two-way street. English-speaking kids dive into Spanish, and Spanish-speaking kids gain confidence in English. They don’t just learn from each other; they learn with each other, building a community where every language is an asset.
Second, we use the body to teach the brain. Words stick when you move. We don’t just say “plátano” (ba-na-na) —we feel its triplet salsa rhythm in our hands and feet. Vocabulary lives in a gesture, grammar lives in dance steps. It’s learning that you don’t just think; you feel.
Say BA-NA-NA! Clap the rhythm. That is a triplet – a beautiful Latin rhythm!
And finally, this is about real-world belonging. In a city like ours, multilingualism is practical magic. It’s how you order your breakfast, make a new friend, or find your way. Let’s be honest: in New York, you’ll need some Spanish or Mandarin just to get anything to eat! We treat that not as a chore, but as a superpower. Our classroom is a microcosm of our vibrant New York , where speaking Spanish, Mandarin, or French isn’t exotic—it’s essential. It’s how we build a future where every child feels not just included, but indispensable.
The Music of WE: How Our Languages Build Our Future
La música del nosotros. La musique du nous. 我们的音乐，我们的未来。
This grant will allow us to deepen this work, particularly for our Spanish-speaking communities. It recognizes that language access is equity. In our programs, a child’s home language is celebrated as a vital asset—a bridge to belonging, a tool for confidence, and a source of creative power.
The magic happens when that confidence sparks. Take Carolina, a Spanish-speaking girl we recently cast in our new film, Children of the River. She struggled with the English “r” in “river,” a sound worlds away from the Spanish “r.” We recorded her takes, and she watched the footage. In that moment, she saw two things: the precise shape her lips needed to form to make the new sound, and the beautiful, budding actress she truly is. That’s the dual gift of this approach—practical skill and soaring self-worth.
We are immensely grateful to the Department of Cultural Affairs, Mayon Zoran Mamdani, and the City Council. This support fuels our belief that through art and la amistad (friendship), we can create spaces where every child’s voice is heard, celebrated, and empowered to ask for the world.
To learn more about our programs and philosophy, explore our forthcoming feature: “How Bilingual Arts Education Helps ELL Children Belong.” Join us at https://www.foundationfornewamericanart.org
Read more: NYC’s Future Speaks Many Languages. Here’s How We’re Teaching Them.
Written and read by Phoebe Legere, founder and Executive Director, New American Art Foundation
Phoebe Legere is an internationally acclaimed artist, a composer, novelist, and underground performance legend whose work detonates the borders between music, film, visual art, and radical inquiry. Signed to Epic Records as a teenager, she exploded onto the cultural landscape, later sharing stages with David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, and Allen Ginsberg, while writing seven operas about female power and insurgent leadership. A celebrated film composer, her early hit Marilyn Monroe (Island Records) became a cult anthem, joining her broader catalogue of iconic scores for independent and experimental cinema.
Her award-winning film The Gender Symphony (2024) — a fever dream of animation, philosophy, and gender alchemy — has seized 17 international prizes, including Best Soundtrack at the NY Independent Film Festival. Her newest bilingual single 2 Pianos, released with a climate video shot at Yaddo, blasted its way to #10 on the Canadian Groover chart.
A lecturer at NYU, Executive Director of the Foundation for New American Art, and a doctoral candidate plumbing Indigenous epistemologies, queer futurism, and post-catastrophic aesthetics, Legere moves with equal fluency through the academy and the underground. The recipient of numerous awards and honors for innovation in music, film, and socially engaged art, she is currently building a monumental public sculpture, crafting a new feature film, mounting a Bundy Museum retrospective, and completing a transdisciplinary novel.
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