Being Bilingual Helped Open Doors For Benicio Del Toro

One of the biggest issues parents struggle with is teaching their children Spanish. It’s so important, especially for Latinos because it helps opens doors, as well as understanding their culture better. Benicio Del Toro has benefited from being bilingual and during his commencement speech at the University of Puerto Rico he shared how being Hispanic and bilingual has helped him advance in his career.

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  One of the biggest issues for Hollywood actors like Benicio Del Toro is not looking mainstream. Many actors are often asked to dye their hair or sound more American because their accent comes through when they are bilingual. Del Toro was even asked to change his name if he wanted to make it in Hollywood. “Changing my name would be forgetting who I am and leaving my pride aside; not just my personal pride, but the pride for my country and my identity,” he says. “If you forget where you come from, you lose the essence of who you are.”

¡¿Qué?!| Are You Bilingual?

Coincidentally, the first role he did in Spanish was for the movie “Traffic”, which won him an Oscar…by the way. “That was the first film in which I spoke Spanish, and I quickly realized that being bilingual and knowing two cultures is in no way a disadvantage,” said Del Toro.

He told students to own their dreams and their ideals even if it means you won’t get what you want right away. Have patience and those things will come with hard work. “Failure and success are two sides of the same coin. Without failure, there’s no success,” he said. “No one taught me how to fail; there were so many failures that I learned not to be afraid to fail very quickly. Without failure there is no success, and when those moments of failure come, don’t give up and don’t lose your courage.” Instead, learn from those failures and overcome them so you can start over with the same love you did before.

Check out his speech in Spanish below:

Benefits of Being Bilingual