El Rito Media News Services

State Rep. Yanira Gurrola found her calling in bilingual education.

“For two or three years in this country, I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ “ Gurrola, D-Albuquerque, a trained engineer-turned-bilingual educator, said in a recent interview. “But then I really fell in love with everything. I saw what the program did to my students, and that’s when I became an advocate.”

Gurrola, 50, a former bilingual math teacher elected to her seat in 2022, has been a staunch advocate in the Legislature for bilingual and multicultural education measures, co-sponsoring almost every recent effort to bolster programs across the state.

Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, she first visited the U.S. as part of a church-led community service trip. She moved to Albuquerque in 2000.

She wanted to get more involved in community work than her background in electronic industrial engineering allowed, she said. So, in 2005 she earned a master’s degree in curriculum and instructional leadership from the College of Santa Fe.

Even then she was lost, she said, until a counselor at the college told her a female Mexican engineer might be a role model for other women.

“And in that moment, I knew what she meant,” Gurrola said. “So, I became a math teacher.”

She worked for over a decade as a math teacher in several schools but ultimately found her place at Washington Middle School in Albuquerque, where she worked from 2006 to 2019.

Six years ago, she left the classroom to work in professional development for Dual Language Education of New Mexico, a nonprofit that travels nationally and internationally to help schools and districts develop dual language instruction.

Dual language, one of the five program models recommended by state’s Bilingual Multicultural Education Advisory Council, calls for learning subject matter in a mix of two languages, either starting at a 50/50 split or starting with more use of the student’s home language before gradually reaching 50/50. For kids in lower grades, the goal is to reach 50/50 by the third grade.

“Every program, except the dual language program, is trying to fix the kid because they don’t speak English,” Gurrola said. “We don’t value what they bring to the classroom.”

In a dual language program, students behave differently, she said. “They became more involved in the school. They were happier. They behaved better — I mean, it was day and night. And year after year, I was trying to understand why.

“And then that’s when I realized — kids feel that they belong,” she said. “They are part of something here.”

The program is more than just a way to make kids more comfortable in school, Gurrola said. It harkens back to correcting legacies of cultural erasure.

“Talk to any Native New Mexican,” she said, “and they will tell you their parents were beat up for speaking their language.”

She sees bilingual and multicultural education as more than an academic approach — it’s cultural preservation.

“It’s not just Spanish,” she said, “Native languages were here before Spanish, before English. They’ve tried to eliminate them, but the culture and identify have survived.”

Spanish, too, has faced erasure, Gurrola said, something she saw firsthand in the school system.

“Many parents felt pressured to stop teaching their kids Spanish after being punished for speaking it,” she said. “Assimilation was the goal.”

Gurrola recalled one moment when a parent expressed relief after school staff made an effort to find a Spanish speaker.

“He was so embarrassed that he couldn’t communicate. And I said, ‘You are communicating in your second language with somebody who speaks only one — and you are the one who feels embarrassed?’ “ she said.

Gurrola noted that under the New Mexico Constitution, she must be proficient in English to serve as a state legislator.

“I’m speaking English with you because that’s the language of power,” Gurrola said from her office in the Capitol. “I could speak Spanish — and I’m tempted to, since I’m better in Spanish — but that’s the inner mentality.”

CUTLINES Michael G. Seamans/The New Mexican

Pic 1: Rep. Yanira Gurrola, D-Albuquerque, listens as the session is called to order on the floor of the House of Representatives at the state Capitol in Santa Fe on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. Gurrola, an engineer-turned-bilingual math educator, has been a top proponent of bilingual and multicultural education in the state.

Pic 2: Rep. Yanira Gurrola, D-Albuquerque, listens as the session is called to order on the floor of the House of Representatives at the state Capitol on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025.