THE ISSUE OF LANGUAGE IN EDUCATION IN TERRITORIAL NEW MEXICO

Abstract

Issues related to educational policy are often discussed by professionals and laymen alike without reference to their historical context. Nowhere is this more evident than in contem porary discussions related to language policy decisions in public schools. Debates surround ing the feasibility and advisability of bilingual instruction in linguistically heterogeneous areas are all too often replete with false assumptions regarding previous school policy. In some cases these errors are due to a lamentable lack of familiarity with the historical record, but in other cases the facts are simply unknown due to a failure of most historical accounts to deal with the issue of language policy in education. The latter seems to be true in the case of New Mexico. Fortunately, however, original sources such as public school documents and Spanish newspapers can provide a great deal of insight into events and attitudes relevant to this type of analysis. In this article I will attempt to describe the historical context within which educational language policy decisions were initially formulated in territorial New Mexico and to outline the types of language-related issues that had to be addressed in those initial years of public schooling. An identification of these core issues should prove illuminating to those who are currently involved in conceptual izing a more rational and humanistic approach to education in multilingual settings.1

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