How Do You Put Words to Spanish Heritage?
What does a language mean to a culture? In this episode, we learn why it can be difficult to keep heritage languages like Spanish alive in the U.S. and how the Spanish Heritage Language program at UNM can help students reclaim their cultural identity.
Learn more about Spanish as a Heritage Language program.
Learn more about Damián Vergara Wilson.
Learn more about Liliana Alva Regalado.
Read New Mexico is Losing a Form of Spanish Spoken Nowhere Else on Earth from The New York Times.
Read more about languages spoken at home as reported in the U.S. Census.
About Our Guest(s)
Dr. Damián Vergara Wilson
Damián Vergara Wilson (Ph.D. University of New Mexico) is the coordinator of the Sabine Ulibarrí Spanish as a Heritage Language Program. His main areas of research and teaching are historical linguistics, sociolinguistics and sociology of language. One of his chief goals is to use these areas of study to support and inform the field of teaching of Spanish as a heritage language in the Southwest.
A second goal is to advance research that examines the utility of usage-based theories of linguistic representation as accounting for language change and variation. He also applies a combination of his expertise as an expert witness in federal court cases involving bilingual interactions with police that result in miscommunications and ambiguity.
Liliana Alva Regalado
Liliana holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Universidad de Morelia, Mexico. She worked in various newspapers in her hometown as a reporter and co-editor, before becoming a teacher of reading, writing, and literature. Liliana migrated to Albuquerque, NM in 2018, and embarked on a new journey as an immigrant who did not speak English.
Now, as a native Spanish speaker, former teacher, and journalist in Mexico, she plans to accumulate more knowledge as she pursues a M.A. in Spanish Linguistics and focusing on teaching Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL). This semester, she is a teaching assistant in UNM's SHL program. She is a dog person and loves sunsets.
Hosted by UCAM’s Carly Bowling
Long-time listener, first-time podcaster, Carly Bowling, is a university communication representative in The University of New Mexico’s University Communication and Marketing team (UCAM). She is thrilled to help shed light on the outstanding research work being done at UNM, New Mexico’s only R1 university. In addition to producing IPNRS, she contributes stories and videos to the UNM Newsroom, the University’s official communications platform.
Bowling is a graduate of the Arizona State University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism (’19). Her background includes multimedia journalism, documentary filmmaking, photography and writing. She is passionate about science communication and making academic topics and research accessible and interesting to people from all backgrounds and she hopes you’ll consider subscribing to the show!