Lauded educator prizes his roots above all
Walter Archuleta has worked so hard at creating, fostering and advancing bilingual education in New Mexico’s schools that the state association devoted to the topic has given him two lifetime achievement awards.
No matter how you slice it, that’s a lot of excellence in just one life. And since Archuleta is only 71, he might just have a chance at the hat trick from the New Mexico Association for Bilingual Education.
Archuleta modestly — or is it nervously? — brushes off the irony of packing that much impact into seven decades. What he’d really like to talk about is the concept and practice of bilingual education and education in general. To him and many others, it’s as central to New Mexico as the Rio Grande.
“I had a friend of mine who was an educator,” Archuleta says. “He was an educator for 36 years; taught in the Española public schools, Mr. Eduardo Atencio, and he used to say, ‘Language is the vein through which the culture flows.’ That was one of his favorite sayings: ‘La lengua es la vena por la cual fluya cultura.’ So I always remembered that.”
Who is Walter Archuleta?
He’s a Santa Fe resident; among the state’s most accomplished scholars. He began teaching in the public schools at 23, eventually moving from the K-12 system to what is now the state Public Education Department, then to teaching in its universities. Along the way, he obtained a Ph.D. in Spanish linguistics, but planted his flag on the concept of establishing and growing bilingual education for the state’s public school students.
It may seem strange now, but bilingual education for generations of New Mexicans was a rumor. Those of Archuleta’s generation remember growing up in Spanish-speaking households, only to be introduced to English — and sometimes confronted with it — upon arrival in their first classrooms.
There were times when it was not an easy welcome.
That began to change in the 1970s, when a new generation of educators and state legislators pushed the concept of students concurrently learning both languages in school. Bilingual education classrooms take many forms now — some with 90 percent in Spanish, some with a little less, some 50-50.
Though some proponents of bilingual education anguish at what they fear is a plateauing of the concept, it remains a healthy reality in many school districts: There are waves of teachers who now sport what are known as TESOL endorsements, and just as important, students who graduate with a bilingual seal.
Archuleta says keeping bilingual education at the forefront in cities and towns in New Mexico cannot depend solely on any one group. It can’t just be the advocates. Or the teachers. Or even boards of education. The push, he notes, also has to come from the special interest group that holds aces over kings in any education discussion: parents.
“The parents are a critical piece,” he says.
They certainly were for him, and the lessons continue to this day.
Archuleta says his father, Luis, had little formal education, leaving school for work in the seventh or eighth grade, and even then attending for only a few months a year. It was not uncommon in the New Mexico of those times. But Luis Archuleta loved to read, loved language, and would often write in journals his son now studies every day.
Archuleta credits many as influences in his career, but you have to wonder if it all started there: a traveling laborer with little education from the Embudo Valley, jotting thoughts down every day and saving them in a book. All those years later, one of his son’s greatest joys is learning through those writings — and helping others learn as well.
Though he retired for a second time six years ago — his first Matías L. Chacón Lifetime Achievement Award came after his first retirement in 2006 — Walter Archuleta remains busy with a variety of projects. He’s identifying the New Mexico Hispanics who earned Ph.D.s from 1900-22. Other projects are rooted in language and history, his own and others.
“You did this full compendium of work and it is valued. And then you go and continue more work,” marveled Adrian Sandoval, director for the Center for the Education and Study of Diverse Populations at New Mexico Highlands University. “He’s still making a contribution with efforts of mentoring and coaching and encouraging, which is worthy of a second lifetime achievement award.”
Archuleta talks about what bilingualism and multiculturalism have done for his life. He’s gotten to know his history, but also to impart it. He’s taught in Santa Fe; presented papers in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Salamanca, Spain. He traveled a long way, and yet, never left the Embudo Valley.
“I’ve truly been blessed,” Archuleta says. Maybe that’s the lifetime achievement.