Led by Revolutionary Latinas: The History of Bilingual Education in Hartford

The fight for bilingual education in Hartford was led by Puerto Rican women, particularly Maria Sanchez, who fiercely stepped into a public community leadership role and inspired other community leaders, politicians, professors, and the Hartford Public Schools' Board of Education to manifest her vision. With more Puerto Rican migrants staying in Hartford over the course of the 1960s, the need for a language program that saw the use of multiple languages as an asset and not a burden, became critical. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, a program to intentionally develop a robust bilingual education program across the system emerged, becoming not only a model for the State of Connecticut, but the nation as a whole.

Learn more about this history and its development from Edna Negron, who was the first Hartford Puerto Rican to become part of the first Hartford bilingual teacher core program in 1969 and Glaisma Perez-Silva, who was a recruited teacher from Puerto Rico in 1988. Both of these women became revolutionary Latinas in Hartford’s history and follow the legacy of those who are no longer with us. Negron and Perez Silva’s oral histories will also be part of the digital archive of the Hartford History Center at Hartford Public Library.