Did you know that the first president to be born in the fully-formed United States of America was also an emergent bilingual student? Let’s let that sink in for a little bit. During a time that our founding fathers were getting the United States up and running, a little boy destined to become the 8th president of the United States was learning, as his first language, a Language Other Than English (LOTE).

US President Martin Van Buren was born right outside of Albany, NY in Kinderhook, a primarily Dutch-speaking community at the time. Kinderhook had originally been part of New Amsterdam, but it fell to the British in 1664 at which time, Dutch, as a language, would have lost its status in the then British colony. Although Van Buren was born over 100 years later and was 5th generation Dutch, his family recognized the importance of their heritage language, and like many families along the Hudson River, had maintained the language as their primary means of communication at home.

Our Dutch-speaking president learned English while studying at a one room schoolhouse in the little town of Kinderhook and by listening to the nation’s early political pundits including founding fathers such as Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, who traveled between Albany and New York and stayed at the Van Buren family’s inn. Their visits led to the development of Van Buren’s penchant for all things related to our early government. By age 14, unable to financially afford further schooling, the young, bilingual teenager clerked at a law office, studying law on his own, and eventually passing the bar at 21.

During his teenage years and on, Van Buren developed an allegiance to Jeffersonian Democracy, which promoted a small federal government and greater local control. He went on to unite, albeit temporarily, the Democratic-Republican Party, serve as US Senator, serve briefly as NY Governor, get President Andrew Jackson elected, and serve as Jackson’s Secretary of State. Van Buren followed Jackson’s two terms as president, where he experienced less success. In this role, his stance on slavery, the leading issue of the time, was ambivalent. He supported states’ rights when it came to slavery although he opposed its expansion. In fact, his refusal to annex Texas because he wanted to limit slavery’s expansion is one of the reasons he lost his bid for reelection. On the other hand, Van Buren had greater support from our neighbors. Largely suspicious of tariffs, he worked at fostering positive relations with Mexico and Canada (British North America) and at resolving issues through negotiations rather than through economic and/or military force.

During a time of great polarization, Van Buren was not surprisingly, a highly controversial figure among his contemporaries, but even modern-day historians have differing interpretations of his impact on US history. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that he is an example of what an emergent bilingual student from an impoverished background can accomplish when given the chance. How much less might Van Buren have accomplished if he had not been allowed to develop Dutch at home? After all, we know that the development of 1st language skills contributes to second language acquisition and vice versa.

Furthermore, considering that our founding fathers regularly visited Van Buren’s family’s tavern, consequentially inspiring the young Martin, we can be certain that the great minds that created our country believed in our nation’s multilingual families and in multilingualism as a whole.

Let us continue to foster multilingualism for our students. Whether we are ensuring that our students keep their home languages alive while learning English, that they are recuperating a lost heritage language, or that they are learning a LOTE unrelated to their heritage, multilingualism is an important goal for all of our students.

If you need help building, improving, or sustaining your multilingual programs, reach out to me at arm977@mail.harvard.edu.