[Transcript of interviews with Dr. Guadalupe San Miguel and Dr. Carlos Blanton] Page: 1 of 14
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TABE Raw Footage 2007
Interview with Dr. Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr.
Professor at the University of Houston
Interviewer: "and of course the future... I'm asking every one of the people I'm interviewing.
(Can't make out the rest of what he's asking)
Dr. Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr.: As Josue Gonzilez mentions, and I quote him in my book, I think
that, we're in a different kind of world, where new forms of bilingualism are going to emerge
that are not tainted with the highly politicized nature of bilingual education of the past. And
what we're gonna see is the emergence of much more positive forms of bilingual education;
enrichment bilingual education, two way bilingual education, dual language.
All of these new forms, get at that issue, and move beyond simply just providing English
Language instruction for language minority children. It expands the debate towards moving in a
direction where all Americans learn multiple languages. And again, it goes back even to the issue
of national identity.
How do you define an American? And these new forms of bilingualism are going to redefine
what an American is. And that new definition is going to be one that is appreciative of cultural
differences and is multilingual and respects different languages and seeks to learn the different
languages because we live in a global economy and we can't isolate ourselves anymore from the
rest of the world.
Interviewer: (difficult to hear him) Do you see the rebirth, or the resurrection of bilingual
education, especially since the 60s?
Man: I think there were several; there were at least five major factors that contributed to this.
One that is usually not mentioned, by individuals, I think the role of the activist scholars was
crucial. And by the activist scholars, I mean that in the early 60s, there were several individuals,
Joshua Fishman comes to mind, that had for decades, done research on bilingualism- fought for
foreign language instruction in the schools. It was called the FLES movement, the Foreign
Languages in Elementary Schools. They fought for legislation, in the National Defense and
Education Act, Federal legislation in the late 50s, to ensure that monies went for language
instruction and for the training of language teachers.
These individuals had a history of three, four decades of participating at the national level, at the
local level at the state level, in support for the uses of Non-English Languages in the public
schools and they became crucial in laying some of the major arguments that were used in
bilingual education. As part of that, you also had the research on bilingualism, of the late 50s,
and early 50s, that became crucial in laying some of the basic arguments, and some of this
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Texas Association of Bilingual Education. [Transcript of interviews with Dr. Guadalupe San Miguel and Dr. Carlos Blanton], text, 2011~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1550289/m1/1/?q=%2218XX%22: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.