Meet the 'mother of bilingual education,' Maria Urquides

Valley 101

When she started teaching in the late 1920s, teachers were only allowed to educate in English, even though her students were predominately Spanish-speaking.

This was enforced so heavily that students and teachers would be reprimanded for speaking in their native language. Students were expected to learn English on their own time and teachers were expected to encourage Anglo culture in the classroom.

Maria Luisa Legarra Urquides of Tucson decided to change that.

As the first person in her family to get a college degree, Maria Urquides valued education above most things. Early in her career in the Tucson Unified School District, she noticed her students were not only losing the ability to speak their native language, but they were losing their connection with their culture.

She defied the laws at the time to bridge the gap with her students at the segregated Davis Elementary School, where she taught for the first 20 years of her career. In 1948, she was switched to the mainly Anglo Sam Hughes Elementary School, where Urquides saw the difference in education within the same city.

And in 1955, she was tapped for a new adventure at Pueblo High School by then-Principal Albert Brooks. Urquides, along with a select few others, were to start an innovative bilingual education system because of their passion for cultural and linguistic pride amongst Mexican-American students.

This week on Arizona HERstory, a Women's History Month series by the Arizona Republic podcast Valley 101, we explore the life and impact of Maria Urquides. From a small girl selling tortillas in the barrio in Tucson to sitting on committees for multiple U.S. presidents, Urquides is seen as the "mother of bilingual education."

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