El Pueblo de Tucson: Chicano Leadership in Bilingual Education Part II By Antonio SolisGomez

Maria Legarra Urquides, wearing a saintly smile

Maria L. Urquides was an extraordinary educator at a time when few Hispanic women had the opportunity to exhibit their unique gifts. She was born in Tucson in1908 and obtained a teaching certificate in 1928 from ASU. She first taught in elementary schools and then went to teach at Pueblo High School when it opened in 1956. By then she had gained national recognition, having been appointed by President Truman to the White House Conference on Children and Youth in 1950.

She was appointed by five presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon) to serve on national panels and conferences concerning children and education. In 1965, the League of Mexican American Women, organized by Francesca Flores and Ramona Morín in Los Angeles, California, recognized Maria Urquides for her outstanding achievements

Beto Guerrero told me that she was a passionate advocate of bilingual education but forbade her students to speak Spanish at school, having a staunch belief that Students needed to be proficient in English in order to succeed. On the surface that might seem to some like a contradiction but I met Latinx students graduating from High School whose command of English was very poor because their peer group spoke only Spanish and consequently they had little practice of their second language.

Starting in the early 1960’s, Tucson because of its leadership in Bilingual Education and because Maria Urquides was the regional representative of NEA, held a series of conferences and symposiums focused on improving pedagogy in Bilingualism. From their success grew summer institutes in Guadalajara Mexico. In 1965 Maria was asked to form a committee to look for superior programs in bilingual Education in the Southwest of the United States. On this committee were Rosita Cota, Martin Garcia, Paul Allen, Hank Oyama and Beto Guerrero. They visited schools throughout the Southwest and found the very best one in Laredo Texas in an elementary school classroom taught by Dolores Victor Cruz.

The information gathered by that committee led to the publication of the seminal report The Invisible Minority. Below is the summary in ERIC

REPORTED HERE ARE THE MAJOR FINDINGS OF A SURVEY TEAM THAT INVESTIGATED THE FIVE-STATE AREA OF THE SOUTHWEST FOR PROGRAMS ON TEACHING SPANISH TO THE SPANISH-SPEAKING. AFTER A DISCUSSION OF THE PROBLEMS OF THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN, CAPSULE DESCRIPTIONS ARE GIVEN OF SOME OF THE MORE PROMISING PROGRAMS. OBJECTIVES VARY, DEPENDING ON THE LITERACY (IN SPANISH) AND PRIDE OF HERITAGE (WHICH CAN BE JUST AS IMPORTANT) OF THE SPANISH-SPEAKING GROUPS INVOLVED. THE TEAM'S RECOMMENDATIONS SUGGEST THAT SELECTION AND PLACEMENT OF NATIVE SPEAKERS IN SPECIAL HIGH SCHOOL SPANISH CLASSES MUST BE MORE CAREFUL, ORAL AND WRITTEN TESTS OF SPANISH ABILITY MUST BE EVALUATED AND MODIFIED FOR LOCAL USE, AND INSTRUCTION IN THE EARLY GRADES SHOULD BE IN BOTH SPANISH AND ENGLISH. A READING LIST FOR AN ADVANCED LITERATURE COURSE FOR NATIVE SPEAKERS ON THE 11TH OR 12TH GRADE LEVEL IS SUPPLIED, AS WELL AS A BASIC SYSTEM FOR LITERARY CRITICISM IN ADVANCED COURSES. SUGGESTIONS ARE MADE ON TEACHER EDUCATION AND SELECTION, AND A LIST OF SCHOLARSHIPS IS INCLUDED.

Beto was no longer at Pueblo High School, having departed for the University of Arizona but he and Maria continued their strong collaboration. Beto admired Maria for her selflessness in pushing him and others into roles of leadership. Thus when the Invisible Minority Report was to be released with press coverage in Washington D.C. in June, 1966, she asked Beto to go in her stead. Again in the summer of 1967, Maria asked Beto to attend a Senate committee and an essential part of Beto’s presentation is that he spoke to the committee in Spanish, showing them by example, the frustration that a Spanish speaking child endures in an all English classroom.

Below I quote from Gloria Stewner Manzanares’ "The Bilingual Act 20 Years Later".

In 1967, Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas introduced a bill which proposed to provide assistance to school districts in establishing educational programs specifically for LESA students. Among the recommendations of this bill were the teaching of Spanish as a native language, the teaching of English as a second language, and programs designed to give Spanish-speaking students an appreciation of ancestral language and culture. Although this bill was limited to Spanish-speaking students, it led to the introduction of 37 other bills which were merged into a single measure known as Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) or the Bilingual Education Act, which was enacted in 1968. Title VII was the first federal recognition that LESA students have special educational needs and that in the interest of equal educational opportunity, bilingual programs that address those needs should be federally funded.

A recent photo of Diego Navarrette in a voluteer role with the nonprofit, Southwest Medical Aid

We now turn to the founding of Pima Community College involving some of the same people that have been previously mentioned. In 1969 a committee was formed to establish the guiding principles for the college. Among those on the committee were Henry Hank Oyama, Diego Navarrette, Adalberto Beto Guerrero, Rudy Melone, Fern Ramirez and Maria L Urquides. It was this group of individuals that decided that the college was to be responsive to the community. This meant establishing an open door policy that would accept all students regardless of their educational background. It meant establishing a Bilingual Department where a Spanish Speaking student could take classes in Spanish. They used as a model the classroom of Fred Sanchez, a teacher at Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles, who had been teaching students math and science in their native language, along with intensive classes in English.

Additionally the college was not only to prepare students to enroll in a four year college but to offer vocational programs that would lead to employment. The college opened for students on 1969. Maria Urquides was asked to serve on the governing boar of the college. Hank Oyama became the head of the Bilingual Department and Diego Navarrette became the head of the bookstore but eventually ascended to the presidency of the college.

Next week in Part III the story of Dr. John Garcia, professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona, during this monumental era, concludes this series.