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Historical Marker At NMSU Pays Tribute To Bilingual Educator And Advocate

Laura Gutierrez-Spencer

Recently, a historical marker was unveiled on the campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces to honor an innovator in bilingual education.

The marker, which is located on Espina Street between University Avenue and Stewart Street honors Maria Gutierrez Spencer, who was an advocate for bilingual education decades before it was as valued at the level it is today in the United States.

Laura Gutierrez-Spencer, Director of Chicano Programs at New Mexico State University is the daughter of Maria Gutierrez Spencer. She says that her mother had economic advantages growing up during the depression, but remembered how hard it was for people who were poor during that time.

“She remembers the Dust Bowl and the people coming from Oklahoma and children dying from the trip of starvation, and her family would give out sandwiches to people who would come to the backdoor that were starving,” says Gutierrez-Spencer.

Laura Gutierrez-Spencer says that her mother taught her to see the advantages that she had and that many people didn’t have those same economic advantages.

Gutierrez-Spencer says although her mother’s parents spoke very good English, they only taught her mother Spanish so she would be bilingual and have an understanding of her culture. However, when it came time for her mother to start school she was yelled at by a teacher and sent to the principal’s office for not being able to understand the teacher’s English instructions.  

“I know my mother always remembered that experience and what it felt like to not be understood,” says Gutierrez-Spencer.

Maria Gutierrez Spencer would become an educator and teach Spanish to elementary students in Silver City, where she founded the Bicultural Orientation and Language Development (BOLD) program which centered on the culture of a student and their native language while at the same time teaching the student English.

“It was an award-winning program and the year the program one three national awards in excellence and innovation in education she was fired by the Silver City School Board.” Gutierrez-Spencer says it was the great success of her mother’s BOLD program that threatened the educated and wealthy people in the community of Silver City at that time. 

“Her kids were beating us in English and standardized tests and that threatened a lot of people,” says Gutierrez-Spencer.

A threat that she says also threatened her mother’s safety around that time. She says the local media and others in education constantly verbally attacked her mother and her program to the point that she was even assigned a bodyguard while at school.

After leaving the school district in Silver City, Maria Gutierrez Spencer continued to fight to teach bilingual education to students and teachers in New Mexico and across the country. Laura Gutierrez-Spencer says that her mother often compared the education of a child to a rose bush.

“My mother used to say a gardener doesn’t take a rose bush, a beautiful and expensive rose bush, cut off the roots and then plant it and give it water and fertilizer; you don’t do that. You take the roots, you nurture them, you plant it in fertile soil, and then you get the water and fertilizer and you have a beautiful rose bush. So what are we doing by taking these children and cutting off their roots, by denying their language, prohibiting them from speaking their language and not teaching them anything of their culture, their history?”

In the 1980’s Maria Gutierrez Spencer was presented with the “Wonder Woman Award” alongside Rosa Parks for her efforts in education and social justice. She would pass away in 1992 leaving a legacy of fighting for bilingual education and cultural understanding, especially for those who do not have the same opportunities that many in this country already have. 

Anthony Moreno serves as the Director of Content at KRWG Public Media. He also is host and executive producer for "Fronteras-A Changing America" and "Your Legislators" on KRWG-TV.