麻豆原创

Teachers College Professor Emerita Mar铆a Torres-Guzm谩n, a pioneer in the field of multilingual and multicultural education, passed away in early August at age 67.

鈥淢ar铆a鈥檚 life was about fighting for social justice, especially for ethnolinguistically marginalized groups,鈥� said Carmen Mart铆nez-Rold谩n, Associate Professor of Bilingual/Bicultural Education. 鈥淧art of her legacy through the Bilingual/Bicultural Education program at 麻豆原创 was her social justice commitment to defend and promote linguistically minoritized groups鈥� languages, cultures and identities, and she saw bilingual education as important educational vehicle to support the learning of children from these groups.鈥�

鈥淢ar铆a was a fierce advocate for her program and her students鈥� who was 鈥渢he face and the heart of the bilingual education program at 麻豆原创, and always will be,鈥� said A. Lin Goodwin, 麻豆原创 Vice Dean and Professor of Education.

[Read a departmental tribute&苍产蝉辫;迟辞&苍产蝉辫;罢辞谤谤别蝉-骋耻锄尘谩苍闭

During the early 1970s, as a faculty member at Wayne State University, Torres-Guzm谩n used funding provided under Title VII of the recently passed Bilingual Education Act to create one of the nation鈥檚 first teacher education programs in bilingual education. By 2011, when she received the American Educational Research Association鈥檚 Bilingual Education SIG Lifetime Achievement Award, she had become widely known for her insistence that culture is embedded in language and that therefore children learn best when they are allowed to think, read and speak in their native tongue as well as in English.

Children need access to all the resources they have in order to learn 鈥� and their home languages are a resource.鈥�

鈥� Mar铆a Torres-Guzm谩n

鈥淐hildren need access to all the resources they have in order to learn 鈥� and their home languages are a resource,鈥�&苍产蝉辫;罢辞谤谤别蝉-骋耻锄尘谩苍 said in an interview for the Teachers College Oral History Project in 2012. 鈥淵ou are really tapping on richer sources when you have bilingual education programs, because the child can become more expressive about their needs or what they know when you can understand them in more than one language. And at the same time, the children also are developing better and more varied skills in bridging worlds.鈥�

And while she conceded that 鈥渢he world is turning more toward English, because English is the language of the market,鈥� Torres-Guzm谩n saw language as a two- and often three- or four-way street.

鈥淚鈥檓 very pro-bilingualism and multilingualism 鈥� I don鈥檛 just see it exclusively for language-minoritized people,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 see it also as a very important thing for language-dominant and mainstream populations, because it does give them the resources for understanding new worlds and to become more flexible.鈥�

Yet while while she applied her ideas to cultures ranging from the Maori of New Zealand to that of Bulgaria, where she owned a home, she also spoke and wrote frequently about her passionate commitment to la lucha 鈥� her ongoing struggle to advance the cause of the Latinx community and overcome its marginalization, both in American society and in the Americas.

I鈥檓 very pro-bilingualism and multilingualism 鈥� I don鈥檛 just see it exclusively for language-minoritized people. I see it also as a very important thing for language-dominant and mainstream populations, because it does give them the resources for understanding new worlds and to become more flexible.鈥�

鈥� Mar铆a Torres-Guzm谩n

鈥淲e used to say that having lived anywhere in Latin America gives you a critical eye, because the tendency in a lot of Latin American countries and in many parts of the world is not to see the United States as the center, but to see the United States as a power,鈥�&苍产蝉辫;罢辞谤谤别蝉-骋耻锄尘谩苍 told then-麻豆原创 doctoral student Estrella Olivares-Orellana in that appeared in the journal Esteem. From that perspective, she added, 鈥渆ven the fact that we speak our language in the schools is already a position of resistance, even when the curriculum is the same as the English curriculum.鈥�

To describe the position of Latinx people and the Spanish language in American society, she used the analogy of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson鈥檚 home.

鈥淵ou go in and there is a dome, and you see the grandness of this place. But then you go out through the back and underground and you see the slave quarters. When I saw that, I was emotional about it, because when Jefferson talked about education for all, he was talking about all that were on the surface, above. What was underground, the slaves, were not included in his education. So if you take that as a metaphor, the publicly spoken discourse is not real. If you look at it from below, you know that it doesn鈥檛 include you.鈥�

A Comparative Linguist at 11

Mar铆a E. Torres-Guzm谩n was born in Puerto Rico in 1951, but came to the United States at age one with her mother, a seamstress, and lived in an Irish-Mexican community in Detroit, attending a Catholic school. When she was 11, the family returned to Puerto Rico, where Torres-Guzm谩n attended public schools and became the first member of her family to go to college.

鈥淚 became a comparative linguist when I was 11 years old,鈥� she recalled. 鈥淏ut I also think that in doing that I became aware of cultural differences. Because I lived in the Mexicano community, I understood language variations very early, but language variations related to culture. My Mexican aunt spoke in one way and made foods that were very different and would speak about her culture in very different ways than what we knew at home.鈥�

Yet when Torres-Guzm谩n returned to the States to earn her master鈥檚 and doctoral degrees at Stanford University, her formal concentration was in education and education anthropology because 鈥渂ilingual education was not a real discipline or program. We were supposed to go into another discipline and then have bilingual education associated with it.鈥� 

After completing her thesis on participatory democracy, parental attitudes and bilingual education, Torres-Guzm谩n worked in San Antonio, Texas as a parent educator specialist for the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA), founded by the pioneering bilingual educator , superintendent of San Antonio's Edgewood Independent School District. When she ultimately chose to pursue a career in higher education, she later recalled, it was not to pursue a journey of intellectual self-exploration, but rather as an act of solidarity: 鈥淚 had to do it in conjunction with the community.鈥�

Even the fact that we speak our language in the schools is already a position of resistance, even when the curriculum is the same as the English curriculum.鈥�

鈥� Mar铆a Torres-Guzm谩n

After teaching at Wayne State, Michigan State University and other institutions, Torres-Guzm谩n joined 麻豆原创鈥檚 faculty in 1986 in what was then the Department of Languages, Literature and Social Studies. Shortly afterward, she ended up running the College鈥檚 program in Bilingual/Bicultural Education, soon shifting its focus from policy to teacher education, with a pathway to certification. 

鈥淩ather than trying to influence public policy, Mar铆a made a conscious decision to conduct her struggle by helping students to become reflective teachers who could, in turn, listen to their students鈥� voices and respond to their strengths,鈥� says her long-time friend and colleague, fellow 麻豆原创 Professor Emerita JoAnne Kleifgen. 鈥淭hat was where her heart lay.鈥�

Spotlighting Language Decision-Making

Among her many achievements while at 麻豆原创, Torres-Guzm谩n and Ofelia Garc铆a, then a 麻豆原创 faculty member and now at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, brought top scholars from six continents to 麻豆原创 for a major conference in 2004 鈥� the 50^th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court鈥檚 decision to end school segregation and the 30^th anniversary of its ruling that schools must provide 鈥渁ppropriate relief鈥� for students with limited English proficiency. Highlighting the fact that the United States remained one of only two countries not to have signed to the U.N. Conference on the Rights of the Child, which recognizes language as a human right, the 麻豆原创 gathering focused on how local and global forces combine to affect decisions about education, especially the inclusion or exclusion of different languages.

Subsequently Torres-Guzm谩n, Garc铆a and Tove Skuttnab-Kangas, then a professor at Denmark鈥檚 University of Roskilde, published a landmark edited volume stemming from the conference, titled Imagining Multilingual Schools: Languages in Education and Glocalization. (Multilingual Matters 2006). Many pieces in the book cast a particularly strong spotlight on the issue of indigenous languages. Or, as Torres Guzm谩n would say later, 鈥淲e think only about world languages; we don鈥檛 think about indigenous languages or other local languages鈥� or about 鈥渢he role of teacher education in any of those programs. And that is a big problem in the world. How do you do bilingual education with an African language or a Pueblo language that is not written?鈥�

Empowering Practitioners

Another major strand of Torres-Guzm谩n鈥檚 work was her long-term collaboration with local schools 鈥� particularly P.S. 165, a dual-language school on Manhattan鈥檚 Upper West Side that hired many of her former students and where, for years, she led a teacher study group.

鈥淭he group was an opportunity to continue to grow and explore ideas, which teachers don鈥檛 always do day to day,鈥� said Rebeca Madrigal (Ed.D. 鈥�98), a former P.S. 165 faculty member who now teaches at Dos Puentes Elementary School in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. 鈥淢ar铆a made us feel like professionals and intellectuals 鈥� she brought us to conferences, she co-published with us, and she helped us to see ourselves as advocates for families, communities, schools, and for bilingual education itself.鈥�

Victoria Hunt (Ed.D. 鈥�09, M.A. 鈥�84), the founding principal of Dos Puentes, adds that Torres-Guzm谩n 鈥渃ould see the day-to-day structures of a school as important in providing the benefit of using multiple languages and students鈥� cultures 鈥� but she also understood the larger implications of what it means to be a multilingual person 鈥� of how children see themselves, how communities see themselves, when they see language and culture as powerful.鈥�

Ultimately, these ideas and Torres-Guzm谩n鈥檚 presence at P.S. 165 were instrumental in helping the school鈥檚 principal, Ruth Swinney, forestall a threatened closure by the state and, over a six-year period remake the school into a recognized leader and widely hailed model. As recounted in Freedom at Work: Language, Professional, and Intellectual Development in Schools (2010 Routledge), which she co-authored with Swinney, the larger take-away for Torres-Guzm谩n from this work was that rigidly standardized curricula driven by testing and assessments were choking the potential of schools, teachers and students.

鈥淭he work at P.S. 165 taught me that we ought to spend more time and effort on assisting children in understanding the knowledge we already have and in helping them make it their own,鈥� she wrote in the book鈥檚 introduction. 鈥淲e can talk about standardization and accountability as a way of achieving equity, but we have ample evidence that the freedoms within the curriculum, what is taught and what is measured, are curtailed and the outcomes are greater gaps.鈥�

Her contributions to research and practice notwithstanding, Torres-Guzm谩n may ultimately have been most treasured by colleagues and former students for her mentorship. On an informal level, and then more formally through panels at the annual meeting of AERA, she instituted a practice called testimonios, or the sharing of knowledge between older and younger Latina scholars. She also co-designed a mentoring program for the AERA Bilingual Education Research SIG and worked with the New Voices program of the National Council of Teachers of English. Beyond the many careers that they helped launch and sustain, these efforts helped create a space for Latinx scholars in the broader world of education research.

鈥淎ERA was almost exclusively White and male鈥�an intimidating space where, I decided, there was no room for people like me,鈥� writes Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita of Language, Literacy and Culture at the School of Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst, in a written remembrance of Torres-Guzm谩n. 鈥淚 returned only because of Mar铆a: In 1989, she told me she would be receiving the AERA Early Scholar Award from the Committee on the Role and Status of Minorities in Educational Research, and she sent me an invitation to attend the reception where she would be honored. It was an inspiring event, not only because my friend Mar铆a was receiving this prestigious award, but also because I met other scholars of color who were doing exceptional work. I finally felt I belonged.鈥�

Yet Torres-Guzm谩n similarly sought to empower colleagues 鈥� even those who were not Latinx.

鈥淓ven though I was fluent in Spanish and had lived in Mexico for years, I was a white woman, and while pursuing my Ph.D. as a Title VII Fellow, I wasn鈥檛 always fully accepted by the Latinx members of my cohort,鈥� JoAnne Kleifgen says. 鈥淲hen I spoke to them in Spanish, they often would respond to me in English. But Mar铆a regularly spoke to me in Spanish. It was her way of inviting me into her community and saying, 鈥榃e鈥檙e on the same team.鈥� I always appreciated that.鈥�

— Joe Levine