As a first-generation Colombian-American, Alejandra Tejada struggled to source quality books for her young son. She quickly realized it's a common challenge for many Spanish and bilingual families in Boston and nationwide.
Tejada, who has a background in consumer research and product development, has served as an innovation venture manager at Liberty Mutual Insurance for the past two years. But after seeing the lack of engaging resources to teach her son Spanish, she founded Enlingos, a Spanish language and bilingual book service/platform for kids ages 0-7 years.
The startup is now just seven months old and has been bootstrapped since its inception. Parents interested in receiving an Enlingos book box can put their child's age and interests on the company site, and can choose to receive Spanish language books, bilingual only, or a mix of both.
“We do have an open line of communication with our customers where we ask for feedback. When they receive the books they can tell us what their child liked, what they did not, and then kind of gather information from there in terms of what has hit home,” Tejada said.
Tejada hand-selects the books that are sent out. The materials are sourced from different distributors, some based in the U.S. along with others from international publishers in countries like Spain or Argentina.
Being that Spanish is spoken in a variety of dialects across Latin America and in Spain, proper translation is a huge value of the service. Tejada selects books in specific dialects at the parents' request, since Spanish spoken in Spain differs heavily from the dialects most children are used to hearing their parents speak.
“I spent a number of years in Spain, so I understand the language, but a child here may or may not be able to understand them or they've never been to Spain to understand the cultural differences,” Tejada said.
Enlingos boxes also aim to focus on diverse teaching of different cultural values and experiences, as the racial/ethnic differences across the Latinx diaspora vary.
The service operates on a three month subscription or consumers can purchase one off boxes that are flexible with what parents may need at the moment.
