HONORARY DEGREE RECIPIENT, GUADALUPE VALDÉS

Guadalupe Valdés, one of the preeminent experts on Spanish-English bilingualism in the United States, has devoted her professional career to improving the lives and experiences of Latinx and Black students by advocating for inclusive classrooms where the language and cultural practices of all students are considered.

Dr. Valdés’ desire to advance language teaching and learning in a multilingual world began from her own challenging experiences growing up on the USMexico border, crossing from Chihuahua, Mexico to El Paso, Texas every day for school. After earning her PhD from Florida State University, Dr. Valdés returned to the Southwest to teach at New Mexico State University. She went on to become the first Latina appointed to a full professorship in the University of California system at UC Berkeley. and, in 1992, she joined Stanford University. Now professor emerita, Dr. Valdés is the founder and executive director of a non-profit organization called English Together, which prepares volunteers to provide one-on-one language coaching in workplace English to low-wage, immigrant workers.

Dr. Valdés’s work in the field of bilingual education and ethnographic scholarship has advanced the ways we teach languages and literacy in all respects. She has fearlessly worked to transform bilingual education, approaching issues ranging from methods of instruction to the role of education in national policies on immigration. Because of her work, we understand the importance of considering the language practices of families as well as the powerful role schools and teachers have on the way immigrant students learn.

In the 1970s and ‘80s, Dr. Valdés was the first scholar to call for change to educational programs for Latinx students. She advanced the expanding field of Spanish language teaching in secondary schools and universities, successfully relabeling it from foreign language education to “heritage” language education. Later, as it became clear that this label led to experiences of alienation for some Latinx students, she distanced herself from this idea. Always putting the needs of students first, she pushed back on the bilingual education standards she had helped to grow in order to keep the curricula focused on the complexity and creativity of bilingual learners.

Throughout her scholarly career and advocacy work, Dr. Valdés has stayed focused on inclusion, working to ensure that others, particularly Black students, would also benefit from the changes she hoped to see. For example, Dr. Valdés stood up for Black and Latinx students when dual language programs became appealing nationwide, asking us to be wary of the ways dual language programming can re-center liberalism and Whiteness rather than break the chain. Her ability to constantly question accepted understandings has expanded the borders of the field time and time again and kept us pointed toward more inclusive standards and curricular guidelines for language learning.