Letter from the Chair

I write from a train crossing la Mancha, on my way to a Poetry Festival in Granada. It has been a long, wet winter in Spain, and the fields surrounding the olive groves, studded with grape vines and lavender plants, are deep green.

This has been a big year for Spanish and Portuguese. In the fall we launched our first study abroad program in Cusco, Peru, and early in the winter quarter we admitted the first incoming class to our new PhD program. Three students have accepted our offer of admission and we await their arrival next fall with great enthusiasm.

The people featured in this issue of the newsletter have all followed different roads to and from the Spanish major. It has led alumnus Aaron Rux to the world of the alternate music and film scene in Madrid, while Ramana Marshalla’s detours have enriched her understanding both of herself and the Hispanic world. For Suzanna Martinez all roads seem to have led her to the position of Academic Counselor, while Suzy Petersen will continue in the pursuit of Spanish ballads, both toward digital horizons as well as in Spanish villages and byways.

One of the distinctive hallmarks of the department is our commitment to making the cultural richness of Latin America, Spain and US Latinos available to a broad audience. Since January we have sponsored a photo exhibit by Spanish Civil War photographer Agustí Centelles, with an opening lecture by Professor James Fernández of NYU; and a lecture by renowned Sephardic scholar Andreé Brooks on Doña Gracia Nasí, “The Woman who Defied Kings.” In April we made an open sound check with Grammy Award winner Lila Downs available to our students, while later that month documentary filmmaker and Director of the New York Instituto Cervantes, Javier Rioyo, screened his film on Federico García Lorca. Finally, a few days ago we co-sponsored a lecture by the forensic anthropologist Alfredo González Ruibal on the “memory wars” in contemporary Spain. These events are made possible through your generosity. Please consider contributing to SPS studies.

It is with considerable sadness that we bid farewell to two longstanding members of our faculty who are retiring after many years of service to Spanish and Portuguese Studies. Associate Professor Suzy Petersen is the longest serving member of our department, having been here for nearly 40 years. In addition to being our historical memory, Suzy’s work as scheduler is invaluable. She has been exquisitely attentive to the needs of students and faculty as she shifts sections and faculty like a Chinese puzzle. She has also been the Executive Director of the NW Cádiz Program since the retirement of Farris Anderson ten years ago. What I’ve never understood is how she also has found time to be one of the leading scholars of Spanish medieval and Renaissance balladry. Her website, Pan Hispanic Balladry, is the gold standard and a necessary resource for all scholars in the field.

Fortunately Suzy will be returning to the department for a few years under a post-retirement hire-back arrangement.

Joan Fox will be retiring in December after long association with the department, first as a student in our MA program and later as an instructor. Currently she is a Lecturer and the coordinator of the 100-level Spanish program. Joan is known for her excellence in teaching, her unflagging good spirits, and her willingness to always put the good of the department before her own interests. I would like to emphasize particularly her service as head of the Events Committee, in which she has taken a key role in organizing our annual Holiday Party as well as the complex logistics of the department graduation celebration. Under her leadership, our graduation event is arguably the best in the College of Arts and Sciences.

We will miss Suzy and Joan enormously, and to be honest I don’t know what we’ll do without them. We continue to mourn the passing of Lecturer León Bensadon, who died in the fall.

Our graduation speaker this year, and recipient of the Luis Fernando Esteban Public Service Award, will be Al Maimon, a distinguished member of the Seattle Sephardic community. Al is a direct descendent of the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher, Maimonides. This is part of our outreach to the Seattle Sephardic community, the second or third largest in the country, an initiative on which we are collaborating with the Jewish Studies Program.

Wishing you all a restful and productive summer, I sign off until next fall.

Tony

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Faculty Spotlight: Suzanne Petersen

Suzanne Petersen, Associate Professor, is retiring in June. If you think she will be relaxing, gardening and traveling, then there is some nice swamp land in Florida you might consider buying.

“I am retiring so that I have time to pursue my research,” explained Petersen, a medievalist whose specialty is ballads. Her research began long before she arrived on the University of Washington campus.

“When I received the job offer from UW in 1973, I was living in San Diego, working on my thesis, and had just finished writing an NEH grant for ballad collecting and research in Spain,” said Petersen who was a member of the Instituto Menéndez Pidal Research Collaborative. Unsure if the grant would be awarded, she accepted UW’s offer. The grant did come through and although she couldn’t go during the academic year, she spent the next ten summers in Spain, researching and ballad collecting.

In Petersen’s own words:

“Concerted, systematic attempts to preserve the oral traditions of Spain before the last aging singers disappear date only from the 1970’s when scholars realized that the arrival of mechanized farm equipment and radio and television to even the most rural areas was beginning to undermine traditional life and attitudes towards the much venerated oral poetry inherited from their forbearers. This encroachment inevitably threatened the unique role of traditional balladry, its inherent mode of anonymous transmission, and its very survival.

Unlike lyric and narrative poetry born as a written composition and forever fixed in print, poetry composed and transmitted orally can and must constantly change if it is to survive, for unless it can adapt to the ever-evolving linguistic, aesthetic and ideological norms of each local community and succeeding generation, it becomes meaningless. Ballads that survived into the twentieth century typically address issues of universal human conflict such as those between husbands and wives, daughters and parents, young women and in-laws, usurpers of power, and the like. Beyond their entertainment value, ballads offered a venue for anonymous exploration of alternative solutions to such conflictive relationships. To a varying extent each new rendition of a ballad is not a simple repetition, but a reinterpretation, conscious or unconscious, of the meaning the ballad holds for the singer and his or her community.”

In traditional societies women sang while washing at the river bank or village fountain, rows of farmers sang to synchronize their scythes when cutting grain, young folk gathering olives and mothers with fussy babies sang and, gathered around the fire on a cold winter night, singing and storytelling were both the only available form of entertainment and an opportunity to explore and even challenge norms inherited or favored by those in power. As the mechanized, modern world encroached, ballads that for centuries had accompanied both communal work and play began to lose their viability, appeal, and ultimately, their relevance. This is why documenting what little remains of a dying tradition is so important.”

Petersen did not start out as a medievalist. In the late 60’s at the University of Wisconsin (Madison), as at many universities during that time, graduate students went on strike. All but one of the Spanish Department’s foreign-born faculty members supported the strike. Petersen’s then thesis advisor was the one who crossed the TA picket line. “That ended our relationship,” said Petersen. Striking faculty and striking students, who were holding classes off campus, got together and redistributed research areas. Petersen chose a favorite professor, Diego Catalan Menéndez Pidal, and thus a new thesis and area of specialization was born. “Traditional arts were gaining legitimacy in academia,” explained Petersen, “as researchers discovered their literary, social, and historical value.”

For her thesis, Petersen studied over 600 versions of one ballad. “Computer technology was essential to my research,” Petersen explained, “to enable understanding of how oral narrative songs transform over time and across vast geographic areas that encompass the entire Iberian Peninsula, South and Central America, Northern Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.” In 1975 Petersen travelled to Spain with an undergraduate computer programmer. Using a program that had been written to determine placement of a highway between Madison and Milwaukee they replaced the variables necessary for that project with poetic variables to map narrative affinity among the 600 versions of her ballad.

“Sadly, I began too early,” lamented Petersen. “The project was designed back when database querying and the scripting potential for computer display was primitive. My research is all online—about 10,000 medieval and modern ballad “texts,” audio field recordings, medieval and early modern manuscripts and supporting documentation—but vast amounts of valuable data can’t be properly mined; it needs to be brought into the 21st century.”

Critical to Petersen is that this work survives. Data needs to be updated using new analytical capabilities to ensure future viability. This is Petersen’s life’s work and retirement means she will be able to devote more time to it.

During Petersen’s 40 years at UW, she taught medieval literature classes to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as Introduction to Fiction and, her favorite, 303 Composition and Stylistics. “This is the class where students get a chance to see that they can do in Spanish what they can do in English and that all the grammar work paid off,” said Petersen. She also handled course scheduling for the department and ran the Honors Program and the Cadiz Study Abroad program for many years. “I enjoy running the Cadiz program and seeing the students grow as their horizons broaden, they learn about themselves and look out for one another while abroad,” she said.

So, for Petersen, retirement means handing in her tenure line but continuing to teach at 40% and direct the Cadiz Study Abroad Program. “I feel good about this now because two new colleagues, Ana Gomez Bravo and Raquel Albarrán, have arrived to take over the medieval and colonial portion of the division, and strengthen our new Ph.D. program” she said with relief.

And, it means diving headlong into her research.

“I can’t wait!” she said.

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Student Spotlight: Ramana Marshalla

Until recently, Ramana Marshalla has been reluctant to tell her story. Currently a UW Honors student, Marshalla was embarrassed that despite being a straight-A, overachieving high school student, she dropped out in her senior year, left home and lived in her car for a while following a devastating nervous breakdown.

After studying in Querétaro, Mexico during junior summer, Marshalla said, “High school with all its drama was frustrating and, although I only needed one class to graduate, I took a full load.” The pressure proved too much for her. Her hope to graduate at or near the top of her class crumbled, confusing her family, teachers and, most of all, Marshalla.

After two and a half years waitressing and soul-searching Marshalla returned to academics, completing high school and an Associates Degree at Cascadia Community College in Bothell.

Working in a Mexican restaurant in a Mexican-American Community, immersed in Spanish, convinced Marshalla that her studies would involve Spanish. So with her degree and some money she had saved in her back pocket, Marshalla did a 12-week intensive Spanish Program with the Clic International House Language School in Seville, Spain. Unable to afford side-excursions, Marshalla spent her free time wandering the city. “As I explored Seville, I found myself,” she explained. “Getting to know my surroundings enabled me to know myself: what and who I liked,” she added.

“I began to accept that the traditional route is not always best, and certainly was not for me,” she said. Marshalla was ready to finish her degree. She struggled with the personal statement on her UW application, but chose to come clean with her story. “Even if I was not accepted to U.W., I knew what I had accomplished,” she recalled, “and I didn’t feel like a failure anymore. I read the essay after I wrote it and thought, ‘That’s me.’”

But she was accepted. And recommended for the honors program. And will graduate with distinction and honors this June from the U.W.’s Division of Spanish and Portuguese Spanish Honors Program.

Professor Anna Witte “… supported me from the start,” said Marshalla. “Being a transfer student was tough, not knowing the system or any of my peers.” But Witte was supportive and helpful and took an interest in Marshalla’s path. “She was instrumental in making me feel that I was capable,” said Marshalla. In Witte’s translation class this year, Marshalla translated the short story, El Bien Esquivo (Evasive Good) by Ana Rosetti. “It was an extreme blessing to work with Anna Witte in that translation class,” said Marshalla. “Her belief in me was most assuring for the path I ended up on.” Marshalla respects and admires Witte who she describes as “a creative, brilliant, fun professor. She is worldly and well studied and really knows her stuff. If I become a professor, she will be my model.”

Advisor, Suzanna Martinez deserves “…the most kudos in the world!” said Marshalla. “She was the first person I talked to at the UW. She guided and helped me plan my schedule, allowing me to bounce ideas off of her,” added Marshalla. “She is the best tutor/advisor I could have hoped for, always smiling, always there when I need her.”

The late León Bensadon recommended Marshalla for the honors program. “He was a good-hearted man who made clear his abundant care that all his students learn,” reflected Marshalla. “His diverse experiences carried over into his teaching of language; he related word meaning and usage to broader topics and areas of life helping students make deeper connections in their overall understanding of the language. I cannot say or use certain words in Spanish without thinking of the specific lesson in which I learned the word from him.”

David Sánchez was another stand out. “He inspired me because I saw myself in him through his lively passion for language. His recognition of me and my love of learning caused me to work and study harder,” she recalled. “His enthusiasm for his subject and encouragement of students made language a magical, mystical thing guided by fixed rules,” she recalled.

And her study abroad experience in Ecuador solidified her drive to go into education and cemented her love of Spanish.

To anyone struggling with their path – or even to those who are not – Marshalla advises, “Don’t be afraid to stray from the norm, to make your own decisions and to follow what your heart is telling you. You know what you are supposed to do despite pressures all around you.”

Next up? After graduation, Marshalla will be heading to Spain to teach English with the Cultural Ambassador Program. Then her Master's degree. “I don’t know what I want to do after that,” said Marshalla. For now, she’ll just see how it goes. “And,” she added, laughing, “that’s okay!”

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Staff Spotlight: Suzanna Martinez
Senior Academic Counselor

Suzanna Martinez smiles when she talks about, “…the beauty of a liberal arts degree.” As Martinez discovered along the road to her current job as Academic Counselor for the Spanish and Portuguese Division, there is no limit to what a liberal arts graduate can do. Her personal understanding and first-hand experience of this is what enriches Martinez’s work.

“I encourage Spanish Majors to open their minds to many possibilities,” she said. “Teaching and translating and interpreting are good paths, but they are just a few of the possible careers available to our majors.”

Martinez graduated from the UW Jackson School in International Studies, planning to work for the State Department or be a U.N. translator. But after taking the Foreign Service exam and passing the written but not the oral part, she changed her mind. “I took it as a sign that there was something else out there,” she said. “Or, as they say in Mexico, ‘La vida da muchas vueltas.’”

A career exploration class pointed Martinez toward teaching, advising and counseling. During a four-month internship at the Institute of International Education in Mexico City, her work with an educational advisor cemented her interest in advising. “It was a great experience for so many reasons,” said Martinez. Along with increased language skills, her confidence was boosted by successfully navigating housing, transportation and life in one of the largest cities in the world. “Pre-Internet!” Martinez laughed. Martinez received a Meritorious Service Award for her work at the Institute.

But even more importantly, she met her future husband.

The immigration process was complicated. In the end, Martinez’s husband moved to the U.S., temporarily derailing her from her career path. “I had to support us both for a while,” explained Martinez who worked at Costco, in the fishing industry, the travel business and as a classical piano teacher.

Martinez eventually found her way back to education, working three part-time jobs in the K-12 system. “I taught Spanish to home schooled students; English to ELL students; and translated and interpreted for the Monroe School district.

She broke into higher education at Lake Washington Institute of Technology, working in Enrollment Services and Assessment. She was content until a friend at UW told her about an opening for an Academic Counselor in the Division of Spanish Portuguese. “I read the job description and knew that this was what I had wanted to do for 20 years,” she said. “I think one of the reasons I was hired was because of the variety of experiences I had that prepared me for this position,” she added.

Now Martinez helps her students think about how each of the things they are doing in their academic experience (study abroad, service learning, course work) fit into the larger picture. She helps majors, minors and some pre-majors with registration, career advising, preparation for graduation and monitoring degree requirements. Martinez is the Staff Curriculum Coordinator, working with faculty when a new class is being created or requirements are changing, to ensure needs are being met for students with the highest possible quality program.

There are days when, as Martinez puts it, she feels like a short-order cook. “But on the days when I help a student think about their path in a new way, or how a certain class can complement their main course of study -- those are the moments I look for in this job. When that happens, when it clicks, it’s pretty amazing.” And, she adds, “The moments when I know I have made a difference are when I know I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

Completing the circle is the fact that in her current role, she sometimes sends students to the Institute in Mexico City where she interned. “The director I worked for was there until a year ago,” said Martinez, “which made for a strong connection.”

Martinez is working on ways to stay in touch with graduates whom she advised. “It is important to stay connected with our alums to track what they are doing and to show current students what they can do with a Spanish Major.” Martinez is developing a Linked In page to stay connected with alumnae. She hopes this will facilitate future links between former and current students to provide career resources.

It was a long, circuitous route back to where she started. And where Suzanna Martinez belongs. Welcome home!

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Alumni Spotlight: Aaron Rux

What is a nice University of Washington Spanish alumnus doing in Madrid, Spain? Would you believe working in film and advertising? How about writing soundtracks for television shows? Or performing comedy in bars and theaters? Aaron Rux is doing all three – and more.

Rux set out on a traditional path with his education and his life. He began studying Economics, resisting his inclination towards Spanish and Literature, but graduated from UW in 2004 with a Spanish and Comparative Literature Degree. After completing an M.A. in Hispanic Studies at Middlebury’s Madrid campus, Rux pursued teaching jobs in the U.S. Instead he used his Spanish to work as an insurance adjuster for a company that handled catastrophe claims. “It was interesting,” he said, “but not the right fit.”

Rux returned to Spain to clear his head. Having written poetry for years, Rux, encouraged by a friend in advertising, composed music and lyrics for a song he also performed. The song, Dear Dorothy, was used in a film nominated for a Goya (the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars). To hear the song, go to the teaser for the film, which can be found on El País or Reverbnation. The song is the first thing you will hear.

Back in the U.S., Rux worked for a marketing firm but continued collaborating with his friend in Spain. As his focus turned increasingly to music, writing and singing, Rux knew what he was going to do. “Art and writing have always been my first loves,” said Rux. So he returned once again to Spain to work on an album. “The album was a commercial failure,” laughed Rux, “but when I heard my music on the radio, for me, that felt like success.”

Five years later Rux, still in Madrid, is writing soundtracks for films, advertisements and television shows. “I’m beginning to make a name and some money,” Rux said, “but I teach English to pay the bills.”

Rux is currently working on a feature-length film due out in the fall. “There is prestige, government funding and major stars associated with this one,” said Rux. “The film, Todos Están Muertos, set during the 90’s, references the Movida Madrileña cultural movement of the late 70’s and 80’s, and is filled with punk rock, glam, and androgyny.” To learn more about the film, go to RTVE or Fotogramas.

How are the arts faring in Spain given the current economic situation? “The arts in Spain, especially film, are suffering,” said Rux. “There is corruption and an antagonistic relationship between the far right government and artists.” In response to the impasse in which many artists find themselves, a new movement called Cine Low Cost is producing zero budget films. Actors and musicians, while not being paid, are creating and working. “This allows us to do it, to get it out there, without dependence on government involvement or money,” explained Rux.

Rux also performs with a humor collective called Canódromo Abandonado in Madrid bars and theaters. “They say we do Post Humor (a genre that proposes situations and ideas rooted in philosophy),” said Rux, “but I like to think of it as an exploration of alienated thirty-somethings whose failure to integrate into the adult world has led them to create a deformed surrogate in its place. It’s like a group of precocious thirty year olds playing house.” The group recently shot a feature length film in Seattle. “ La Tumba de Bruce Lee, or Bruce Lee’s Tomb,” centers on a Spanish couple coming to Seattle to be close to Bruce Lee’s tomb. The ultimate lesson is that one needs more than a map to find one’s goal. “The acting is not comedic per se,” explained Rux, “ but more of a philosophical discourse. People think they need a certificate to achieve their goals but what they really need is confidence, experience and patience.” (To learn more about the humor collective and the film, go to Canódromo Abandonado's website. To see a teaser for film, go to Vimeo.)

Rux credits his time at UW for early lessons in patience. “I was fortunate to spend a year in Cadiz with Tony Geist (Chair),” said Rux. “He was supportive of me when I was writing really terrible poetry, teaching me the importance of time and patience to develop my craft and mature as an artist.” Rux also acknowledges professors Suzanne Petersen, Donald Gilbert-Santamaria, and Edgar O’Hara for their guidance. “I had a really good experience with all of my teachers who inspired me and helped my path unfold.”

Ultimately, as it turns out, his path chose him. “I am fortunate that I get to sit down and do what I like,” said Rux. “I teach all day and then leave school and work for seven more hours. But it’s okay because I feel lucky to be busy and to have a strong sense of purpose.”

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Study Abroad: Summer Program in Quito, Ecuador
Ecuador: The Meeting of Cultures

Sixteen students are packing their bags and preparing to spend four weeks in Quito, Ecuador this summer. UW’s Quito Study Abroad program is in its tenth year and is open to undergraduate, graduate and non-matriculated students.

Jorge González, Lecturer and General Director of the Quito Program, responded ten years ago to the Dean’s offer to faculty to start a study abroad program anywhere they thought would be of value to students. “My intention in choosing Ecuador,” explained González, “was to expose students to what it means to be in a Mestizo country and to learn how the combination of European and indigenous blood, language, culture and religion manifests in modern society.” Thus his decision to call the Program: Ecuador, the Meeting of Cultures. González mentioned that Ecuador is small enough to allow students to experience several areas in the short time they are there.

Students will attend Escuela Equinoccial, a private language institute in Quito. They will spend two hours a day on grammar review and conversational Spanish. Three times a week the students take a one-hour salsa lesson and once a week they visit a place of interest in Quito. In keeping with González’ mission for the program, they will visit the Museo del Banco Central, a history museum that examines the pre-Incan societies of Ecuador. “People associate Peru and Ecuador with Incan civilization,” said González,” but the Incas came to Ecuador only 75 years before the Spanish conquest.” Students will also visit La Capilla del Hombre, a museum dedicated to the art of Oswaldo Guayasamín, one of Ecuador’s foremost painters. “Guayasamín paints about people who suffer from exploitation, such as the Bolivian miners, war, such as the Spanish Civil War, and dictatorships,” said González. “The museum, as its name implies, is an homage to human suffering.”

Excursions outside Quito include trips to Baños and Otavalo, a market town.

Home stays are arranged through the IPE (UW’s International Program Exchange Office). Students stay with families in Quito who live walking distance or a short bus ride away from the school. Spanish is spoken exclusively in the home and students’ language skills benefit from a total immersion experience as well as cultural exposure to food, cooking, and family life. González accompanies students every other year, alternating with other instructors. This year María Gillman, Principal Lecturer will join him in leading the program. “Any foreign country experience is valuable to students in gaining perspective on how different cultures can be,” noted González who has been with the UW since 1989. “Family relations, the way they eat, talk and express themselves through language can only be learned by immersing oneself in a culture and country.” As one who came to the U.S. from Mexico, González understands this phenomenon well. “I had a lot of false ideas about the U.S. culture that were dispelled after living here for a couple years,” he stated. “I also learned that my cultural assumptions from Mexico did not always apply here.” Applications are generally due between March and April of the program year. Interested students should contact Jorge González for information on the 2014 summer program.

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Aula Cervantes Institute

The Cervantes Institute was founded in Spain in 1991 to promote the teaching of Spanish and to bring to light the diverse cultures of Spanish speaking countries.

The Seattle branch of the Institute, called Aula Cervantes Seattle, is housed in Room B-209, Padelford Hall. Among the Institute’s offerings, available to both students and teachers, are a wide selection of online Spanish language instruction programs (through the Spanish Virtual Classroom (AVE)), including preparation classes for the Diploma of Spanish as a Foreign Language (DELE) Examination, and one classroom course in the spring.

“The DELE exam is one of the most important things we do,” said María Luisa Miguéliz, director of the UW’s Aula Cervantes. She describes it as the equivalent of a language visa, an internationally recognized proficiency certification. “If you are interested in proving your level of Spanish, if you are planning to travel or work in a Spanish speaking country, if you are applying for a job that requires Spanish knowledge,” said Miguéliz, “then the DELE would be a diploma to enhance your resume and market yourself.” The next DELE exam takes place in May of 2013 with a registration deadline in April. Contact Aula Cervantes for more information. http://seattle.cervantes.es/en/default.shtm

The Institute, in collaboration with the Division of Spanish and Portuguese Studies and the Honorary Consulate of Spain, offers a number of academic and cultural events, all of which are open to the public. Get out your calendars and start planning your winter Spanish cultural and social activities!

This quarter’s events so far include:

For updates and changes and for more information on locations and pricing, check the Aula Cervantes Institute in Seattle website:
http://seattle.cervantes.es/en/default.shtm

You may email María Luisa Miguéliz at aula.seattle@cervantes.es

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Center for Spanish Studies

The UW’s Center for Spanish Studies, one of fifteen in the U.S. and Canada, is a cooperative venture between the University of Washington, the Spanish Ministry of Education and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Education. Located in Padelford Hall, Room B-202C, the Center’s purpose is to promote and support programs that teach Spanish to K-12 students in both public and private schools.

The Resource Center provides bibliographic and video graphic materials as well as novels and books on teaching, traveling and Spanish culture. According to the UW Center’s Director, Eva González-Abad, anyone interested in the Spanish language and Hispanic cultures can borrow materials from the Resource Center. “No card required!” she laughed.

Recent acquisitions are listed below. “The new films have been updated into our system and online catalogue,” said González-Abad. “Come round and borrow a few!”

El lápiz del carpintero El laberinto del Fauno La buena estrella Arroz y tartana Cañas y barro Cervantes El Pícaro Entre Naranjos Fortunata y Jacinta La forja de un rebelde La Regenta Teresa de Jesús Don Quijote Santos inocentes El amante bilingüe Mataharis Rec Celda 211 Which way home

El secreto de sus ojos Obaba Memoria del subdesarrollo Santa Sangre La teta asustada Un cuento chino Chico & Rita Los amantes del Círculo Polar No se lo digas a nadie Pantaleón y las visitadoras Sin noticias de Dios Carancho Lope Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara Rabia La fiesta del chivo

Each year the Center for Spanish Studies and the Juan de Fuca chapter of the AATSP co-organize a professional development session for Washington State Spanish teachers. In February, Heritage Language Learners in the Spanish Classroom, was held at Bishop Blanchet High School. Teachers from across Washington attended the seminar, which was introduced by UW Professor, María Gilman.

It was a great day to share with all participants and, as teacher attendee, Hannah Bellinger (Spanish 1, Woodinville High School and Canyon Park Junior High), said, “No te puedo decir cuán útil ese taller fue para me… Vosotros sois pioneros importantes y me siento súper afortunada haber asistido a la reunión.” (“I can’t tell you how useful this workshop was for me…you are pioneers and I feel really privileged for attending this session.”)

“Students shared their experience and feelings about reacquisition of their mother tongue and the empowerment they feel in being able to relate to their culture, roots and families,” said González-Abad.

On Saturday, March 9, the Center offered another session for teachers. This session, held on the UW Campus, was about legends of Latin America. Run by Yudy Moir, a Spanish teacher at Archbishop Murphy High School in Everett, the session was well attended and greatly enjoyed by participants, who shared their approaches to working with folk tales in the Spanish class.

Other spring events, both past and upcoming are listed below.

WAFLT (Washington Association for Language Teachers) Spring Regional Conference

April 20 in Yakima, WA.

Escribo en Español Awards Ceremony

June 1. Held at the Legislative Building in Olympia, this is the 15th annual school contest held for students of Spanish in Washington State.

If you are interested in knowing more about the Center for Spanish Studies or to learn about upcoming events, email Eva González-Abad at spnrectr@u.washington.edu

Center for Spanish Studies web site:
http://www.educacion.gob.es/exterior/centros/
seattle/en/home/index.shtml

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