Arin Peywa is a native of Zuni Pueblo and a native speaker of the language, despite the fact that she endured years of punishment for speaking it while enrolled at a Catholic school at Zuni Pueblo. Later, as an adult, Arin revived her fluency with fervor. Her efforts to revive the language for herself ultimately transformed into efforts to revive and preserve the language for others. She accomplished this in two ways. First, by spending four years painstakingly digitizing pre existing linguistic and cultural curricular materials, written in Zuni by and for Zuni educators. Second, by becoming an educator in Zuni Public Schools, where she teaches English language arts to middle and high schoolers. The capstone projects she developed for her seniors was nothing short of amazing, where they focused on such things as traditional waffle gardening, sacred Zuni sites, cultural healing, and even how to correctly slaughter and prepare a sheep for cultural purposes. 

Benjamin C. Wilson has been an attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico since 2001. His areas of interest in the legal world include serving as an agent and promoter of aspiring young boxers. However, his first client was neither young nor aspiring. He was Bob Foster, the three-time light heavyweight champion of the world, who Ben met when Foster was already retired and had already realized his aspirations in the world of boxing, having fought the likes of Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, and others. Several years ago, Ben established the Bob Foster Boxing Museum in a "casita" or guest house, in Ben's backyard. Dozens of aspiring boxers and trainers have since come to the museum to view Ben's collection of boxing memorabilia, take photos, and sign the iconic yellow door. We are grateful to Ben for proving us space in the museum to record our podcast. 

Dr. Curtis Chávez was born and raised in Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico. He received his BA from the University of New Mexico in Native American Studies and his MS  and PhD from the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Dr. Chávez has worked within the tribal and public-school sectors for many years, but most recently has offered his assistance in the non-profit world. Dr. Chavez reports he learned Keres as a second language, after learning English. This is because, when he was young, a significant number of the elders and parents in the community were ashamed of speaking the Native language. As a result, many of them taught their children English first. He reports he’s still learning Keres through elders and fluent speakers in the community, as well as at the Keres Children’s Learning Center (KCLC), where, as the CEO of this Montessori school, he hears and speaks Keres every day. He also serves as an advocate for Native American youth.

In his 37 years as an educator, David has served as an education volunteer and program coordinator in the Peace Corps in Paraguay, as a multilingual special education teacher in the South Bronx, and as a dual-language classroom teacher, multilingual program coordinator, and school principal in the South Valley of Albuquerque. In 1996 David and his colleagues helped to organize the first La Cosecha Dual Language Conference, (La Cosecha means “the harvest” in Spanish), which is hosted by Dual Language Education New Mexico, where David served as its Executive Director from 1999 to 2022.  David's advocacy for culturally and linguistically diverse communities has been recognized by the Association for Two-Way Dual-Language Education, the New Mexico Coalition for Educational Leadership, the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce, and, wait for it—the King of Spain! 

Originally from the twin cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Fabiola Espinoza-Pacheco has spent her entire professional career as a bilingual educator in Albuquerque, New Mexico, first as a 4th grade dual-language teacher for several decades and later as the bilingual education coordinator at Albuquerque High School. Among her responsibilities at AHS is preparing students for the rigors of the district, state, and global bilingual seals that are applied to the diplomas of students who fulfill all the requirements of earning a seal, which means taking 4-8 core courses over four years that are taught exclusively in Spanish. This was not an option for her when she was a high school student, even though she was fully bilingual and biliterate. By fulfilling the responsibilities of her current position, Fabiola has found a way to give to others what she was never able to have for herself. 

Grigori Grigoriev emigrated from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, in November, 1995, where he attended both public and private schools before attending Beloit College on a tennis scholarship.

Grigori Grigoriev currently lives in Berlin, where he moved some years ago to study, but ultimately settled, due to work. Initially, he worked as a social media moderator at Facebook, then as an entrepreneur at a craft beer bar. More recently, he has been a trainer in the non-formal and informal education sector in Berlin, which he reports is popular and funded quite well throughout Europe. 

When not working at these various pursuits, Grigori likes playing soccer in a German League, playing squash in a Berlin league, and experiencing new cultures throughout Berlin and Eastern Europe. He has also become quite the gadget aficionado, honing his skills with the raspberry-pi and network switches. Send us a message if you know what those are!

José Luis López Marín is a Spanish-English elementary teacher from Múrcia, Spain. When not teaching, he likes to travel, spend time with family and friends, and experience fine foods. In only sixteen years, has accrued a lifetime of experience in the field of multilingual education, spanning oceans and continents. In fact, in 2021, his travels led him to New Mexico, USA, where he was the last in a series of teachers from Spain who have come to the rescue, so to speak, to help address a shortage of Spanish-English dual-language teachers in the state. Ironic, when you think about it—but we don't! We’re just grateful that he, like his predecessors, found his way to a certain red-brick elementary school in Albuquerque, where he taught a first-and-second grade combination class for two years. As a result, his students, their parents, his colleagues, and the entire school community benefited for two years from his knowledge, enthusiasm, and expertise. 

Originally from Binghamton, New York, Judy Gordon was working in a restaurant in Massachusetts when the opportunity to tutor English learners arose. Through that experience, she became interested in bilingual education. As Massachusetts at the time was hiring only native-speaking Spanish teachers, Judy knew she had to move elsewhere to find schools where she could use her Spanish skills. She ultimately landed in New Mexico, while on her way to Latin America. After a long and successful career as an elementary school teacher and a trainer for high schoolers enrolled in the non profit Amigos de las Americas, a summer program in Latin America, she was ready to retire. But then an offer came her way to be one of two founding teachers in a brand new dual-language program at Zia Elementary. She recalls the eleven years she spent in that program, teaching kindergarten, first, and second grades simultaneously in Spanish and in English, as some of the best years in her career. 

Leslie Hernández arrived in the United States from Delicias, Chihuahua, Mexico on her fourth birthday. After a couple years at the New Mexico Preschool for the Blind, she entered the Albuquerque Public Schools, whose Program for the Blind and Visually Impaired at Zia Elementary helped her with Orientation and Mobility skills, along with academics. While a student in the V.I. program, she was also a student in Zia’s dual-language program, where she excelled in English and in Spanish, learning to read and write in Braille in both languages. Her bilingual education culminated in the placement of the prestigious state and the district bilingual seals on her high school diploma. As a DACA student, entering the university presented new challenges. Dauntless, Leslie overcame those challenges and graduated from University of New Mexico, where she majored in Special Education and received her state teaching license in Special Education. 

Dr. Lillian Gorman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona (U of A). She is the Director of the Spanish as a Heritage Language Program and has over 20 years of experience teaching in and leading Spanish heritage language programs. Dr. Gorman is a proud Chicana with deep roots in New Mexico. She graduated with her B.A. and M.A. from the University of New Mexico (UNM) and with her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research interests include issues of language and identity within U.S. Latina/x/o communities and popular culture. Her book Zones of Encuentro: Language and Identity in Northern New Mexico is the most recent of many publications in this area Dr. Gorman served as a U of A HSI Fellow and as the Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for Regional Studies at UNM in 2020. She is also the recipient of the 2023 U of A “Mentoring Future Scholars Award” from the Office of the Provost.

Michele Trujillo is a long-time Spanish-English dual-language kindergarten teacher at Zia Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

Though the two languages in which she teaches are English and Spanish, Michele has studied several other languages in an effort to understand more about the art, culture, and world views of the people who speak them. 

Señora Trujillo has a master’s degree in Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies from the University of New Mexico, where she studied the life and works of Larry Torres, a noted and prolific educator in Taos, New Mexico, as well as kindergartners' interpretation of the common Spanish rhyme "Sana, sana, colita de rana."

Michele is the founder of Maestras Bilingües New Mexico, a statewide organization of multilingual educators. Finally, she is the creator of numerous works of art, many of which reflect her work in the world of bilingual education.

Sinahi Oaxaca is a 2024 graduate of Albuquerque High School in New Mexico, USA. But such a description sells her short. Not only did she receive a diploma; she also received two bilingual seals attached to the diploma, as well as a bilingual medal to wear around her neck. The seals were granted by the school district and the state, while the medal was granted by an international organization that recognizes global bilingualism. And that's not all. In addition to having to take eight core courses in Spanish over the four years in high school (that is, chemistry, biology, math, etc taught in Spanish), she was also required to take the Spanish AP exam. Of the 250 students worldwide who took that exam, Sinahi was the only one who received a perfect score! And that's still not all. As a part of the nursing courses she took in high school, she found herself teaching basic "nursing" Spanish to her classmates and her teacher! She is now a nursing student at the University of New Mexico.

When we suggested we pin the word “cowboy” to Tee McDougal’s boyhood identity, we were politely redirected to the term “farm and ranch kid.” But what an understated description! As a young boy and on into high school, he was milking cows, raising hogs, cultivating fields, bailing and bucking hay, butchering beef, digging irrigation ditches, stomping cotton in the hopper, erecting and repairing fences, and roping, branding, dehorning, and castrating calves and other farm animals, among other chores. The path he took to becoming a multilingual educator began with interactions with farm hands from Mexico. It continued through a 10-year career in the Native American jewelry industry, a Peace Corps assignment in Paraguay, and a 20-year career as a Spanish-English dual-language elementary school teacher in Albuquerque. And his career didn’t stop there. Learn more about the scholastic and extra scholastic adventures of this former farm and ranch kid from southern New Mexico. 

Warlance is from Lake Valley, a part of Western New Mexico known as the Checkerboard, named because of the pattern state, federal, and native land designations create on a color-coded state land-use map. Warlance attended Lake Valley Navajo School and Navajo Preparatory School in Farmington, New Mexico. He attended the University of New Mexico, where he graduated with a BA in American Studies and a minor in Native American Studies. He received his master’s degree in Diné Culture, Language, and Leadership from Navajo Technical University in Crownpoint, New Mexico. Warlance has been a Diné language and culture teacher for the past 11 years and has taught in the Cuba, New Mexico Independent Schools, the Tóhajiilee’ Community School, west of Albuquerque, and most recently at the Native American Community Academy, or NACA, in Albuquerque. Currently, Warlance is the director of Saad K’idilyé, the grassroots organization which has created a Diné language nest in Albuquerque.