English Language Learning

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Feature Story: Life in Oaxaca

Dr. Michael Fillerup, director of Bilingual Education and English Language Learner (ELL) Programs, spent the 2005-06 year in Oaxaca , Mexico as a Fulbright scholar. One of our ace ELL reporters recently caught up with Dr. Fillerup and spoke with him about his experience.

Reporter: Last year you were conspicuously absent around the district, giving rise to all kinds of rumors. Some people said you had retired, others said you were on a mission for your church. The latest was that you had bought a sailboat and were last seen heading west towards the South Pacific. What's the real scoop?

Fillerup: Actually, door Number Three sounds pretty good right now.

Reporter: The sailboat?

Fillerup: Definitely the sailboat. But you want the real scoop. Last year I was on a sabbatical leave of absence while serving as a Fulbright Scholar in Oaxaca , Mexico .

Reporter: What's a Fulbright Scholar?

Fillerup: The Fulbright Commission was created by the federal government over 50 years ago to promote mutual understanding between the U.S. and other countries. Each year a presidentially-appointed board selects recipients from a large pool of applicants. There's a wide variety of awards - teacher exchanges, visiting scholars who come from other countries to teach in the U.S., student awards for graduate studies, and so forth.

Reporter: How do you apply for a Fulbright award?

Fillerup: You can access information on-line at www.cies.org . You'll find a list of the different types of awards and the requirements. It's very competitive, but a marvelous experience, both personally and professionally.

Reporter: Did you apply specifically to Mexico ?

Fillerup: Yes, you apply to work or study in a specific country. On the website they list all of the participating countries, what types of awards are being offered, the areas of expertise that are being solicited, and so forth.

Reporter: Why Mexico ?

Fillerup: That's a very long story, but I'll try to give you two short answers, one pragmatic, the other romantic. While most of the English language learners in FUSD are Navajo, the vast majority of our non-English speakers come from Mexico . I knew a lot about Navajo culture from over 25 years of wonderful association with the Navajo people. I knew a lot less about Mexican culture. I think the only way to truly understand the heart and mind of a people is to live with them for an extended period of time, eat what they eat, do what they do, laugh with them and cry with them.

Reporter: And the romantic reason?

Fillerup: Romantic's probably the wrong word because you'll expect some steamy Latin love story. It's much more pedestrian than that. In 1978, I finished my masters in Teaching English as a Second Language. I had a job lined up in Mexico City , but at the last minute the job fell through. So I ended up taking a position in Chinle on the Navajo Reservation. We lived in Chinle for six years before moving to Flagstaff in 1985. Call it fate, call it destiny, call it serendipity - that move to Chinle completely changed my career path.

Reporter: How so?

Fillerup: I became involved in American Indian education and public school education. Northern Arizona became my home. Later I got involved in Navajo language revitalization. I've thoroughly enjoyed my time here in Flagstaff , but I always wondered about that last minute detour that sent me north to Chinle instead of south of the border. In a way, going to Mexico was like going back to where my career in Education almost started. It was a way of bringing things full-circle.

Reporter: Of all the possible places in Mexico, why did you choose Oaxaca?

Fillerup: Actually I was assigned to Oaxaca by the Fulbright affiliate in Mexico, and I think my work with indigenous languages and bilingual education had a lot to do with that. Oaxaca is arguably the most linguistically and culturally diverse state in Mexico . There are over a million speakers of indigenous languages, and about 40% of the population is indigenous. When they say “bilingual education” in Oaxaca, they mean Spanish and an indigenous language, not Spanish and English.

Reporter: How many indigenous languages are there?

Fillerup: In Oaxaca? Sixteen languages and virtually hundreds of dialects.

Reporter: So what, exactly, did you do down there?

Fillerup: You mean besides devouring the incredibly delicious cuisine?

My official title was Visiting Professor. My job was to provide teacher training and program development in bilingual education, indigenous language education, and English as a Foreign Language. I developed a series of seven full-day workshops related to those areas, and then I took them on the road.

Reporter: Tell us a little about where you went.

Fillerup: I presented the workshops at universities in and around the city of Oaxaca de Juarez, but I presented in the surrounding villages as well. They have long, exotic names that flow hypnotically from the lips of native speakers, but put a dunce cap on the head of every tourist who tries to pronounce them: Tlacolula, Tlacachuaya, Teotitlan. . . I also had opportunities to present in the Sierra Norte and in some very remote villages. And I presented at a few conferences, including one in Chiapas, the southern-most Mexican state.

Reporter: Were you based from a university?

Fillerup: I had an office at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores Antropologias Social (CIESAS) in the city. It's a very prestigious research institution devoted to studying the culture, history, and languages of Mexico , but particularly those in the southern isthmus.

CIESAS houses a staff of extremely talented researchers-- bright, friendly, intelligent, enthusiastic—the best of the best! It was quite an honor to associate with them. And communication was entirely in Spanish, so I couldn't fake it. By that, I mean that in the past, I could usually say some scripted thing with reasonable intelligence. But among my peers at CIESAS, I had to articulate with extended discourse—you know, actually discuss things in detail with elaboration, clarification, and all of that Bloom's taxonomy business. And if someone asked me a question out of the blue, I couldn't hem and haw, like the errant knight on Monty Python's Bridge of Death .

Reporter: So you struggled with Spanish?

Fillerup: I had marginal Spanish when I left Flagstaff . I was okay for basic communication, but the Oaxaquenans tend to speak fast, and they have many local idioms, so it was hard to understand at first. I may have understood about 60% of what was being said. But it was that other 40% that got me in trouble. The elusive 40% usually determined whether or not I caught the bus, missed my plane, or bought myself a pig instead of a tamale.

Reporter: But your Spanish improved?

Fillerup: I certainly hope so. When I gave my workshops, the participants often represented four or five different indigenous languages. The common language was Spanish. So I had to prepare and deliver all of my presentations in Spanish. It was a steep learning curve, but I really enjoyed it. I suppose I even miss that adrenal rush I used to feel every time someone would ask me a question and I had absolutely no idea what they asked and fifty pair of eyes were staring at me as they waited on edge of chair for my inspired response.

Reporter: And how were your workshops received by the participants?

Fillerup: The participants were wonderful—extremely forgiving of my language deficiencies and very gracious. They were very dedicated teachers and professors, very committed to their professions and to preserving their native languages. We had a lot of common ground in terms of indigenous language issues. They wanted to hear about what was happening in the U.S. and what we were doing in Flagstaff .

When I told them about our dual language Spanish-English programs at Killip and Puente de Hozho, our Navajo revitalization program at Puente , the Navajo cultural center at Leupp, and our Navajo classes in the secondary schools, they were incredulous. “Is this required by law?” they asked. “No,” I explained. “It's not required by law.” “Then why do your schools do it?” I explained that preserving the Navajo language was important to our indigenous community, and therefore it was important to our school district. They were amazed by this.

Reporter: Why is that?

Fillerup: The indigenous communities in Oaxaca and in the U.S. are struggling with many of the same issues: exceptionally high levels of poverty and unemployment, low achievement in the schools and high drop out rates, and language loss and revitalization. They face the same problems as we do in education. Do we teach in the national language (i.e., Spanish), in the indigenous language, or in both?

They're also confronting many of the same issues regarding indigenous language loss and revitalization. In fact, several of their indigenous languages are spoken only by the last of an elder generation.

Reporter: What were the people like in Oaxaca ?

Fillerup: In just one word, MARVELOUS. We made many good friends during our short stay there. Oaxaquenans tend to be short in stature, but very strong. You see old men and women carrying heavy loads on their backs. I found the people to be fun-loving, generous, friendly, exceptionally hospitable, and that's on a non-fiesta day! More importantly, they are blessed with an abundance of heart. In the U.S. we have much in the way of worldly goods. We have so many things we take for granted - books, computers, and technology. The Mexican people don't have nearly as many of these things, but they are amazingly industrious, resourceful, and inventive with what they do have. Nothing is thrown away; everything is used and re-used and re-re-used. I have never seen a people who can do so much, with comparatively so little, in the way of materials things. They do it in their own style and manner with their own unique panache.

Reporter: You said “on a non-fiesta day”. What did you mean?

Fillerup: I don't want to stereotype, but it often seemed as if every day is a fiesta in Mexico . The only question is, is today a little fiesta or a big fiesta or a super size grande fiesta. Don't get the wrong idea - they do work very hard, but they play very hard as well.

Reporter: What was the city like?

Fillerup: Oaxaca de Juarez has a third of a million people, yet by Mexican standards it's small for a city. And there is a small town feel to it. Everybody knows everybody. It's everything you would expect in a colonial town in southern Mexico: the stone streets, the wrought iron bars over the windows, the street vendors selling their wares, the daily gatherings in the Zocalo (town square), and on every corner, a towering stone church, a pharmacy, and an internet café.

Reporter: So you enjoyed the city? Fillerup: Yes, but I also loved the way you could take the bus twenty minutes out of town and be transported back 200 years in time, to a village where men and women wear straw hats, carry machetes and everything is still done by the repetitive, but timeless, labor of the human hand. It was amazing.

I saw small villages where hope and survival are borne on the backs of four-legged beasts, and the center of the universe is a small plaza where men and women barter and trade in the shadow of a stone church that was built with blood, sweat, and tears five centuries ago.

Reporter: How was the weather?

Fillerup: Suffice it to say, on Christmas day it was 85 degrees, clear and sunny. They have two seasons in Oaxaca —the dry season from about October 1st through the end of April, and the rainy season from May through September. For a southern California native like me, the weather was ideal.

Reporter: What do you think you learned from your experience?

Fillerup: I could write volumes about my experience. I gained a lot of insights into the heart and mind of the Mexican people. I learned a good deal about their history, their struggles, their educational system, and the many cultures that make Mexico one of the most unique nations on earth. I learned that the U.S. and Mexico are not just neighbors, but brothers and sisters—and nowhere is that truer than with our indigenous populations. And like our own students, I learned a lot about the process of learning a second language - both the frustrations and the little joys and triumphs. In another vein, it was enlightening to be on the receiving end of what we, as educators in FUSD, try so hard to achieve with our newcomers from foreign lands—to not only teach them a new language, but also to open our arms and hearts to help them as quickly and as painlessly as possible, arrive at that magical moment where they can look at our little pine tree town in the mountains with a smile and call it home.

Reporter: I know that you had a great experience, so let me ask you this: Is there anything you don't miss about Oaxaca ?

Fillerup: I'll mention a few things, but with a caveat: none of these things are excessively mind or heart-wrenching. For the most part, they are simply things that are different or are done differently in Oaxaca than in the USA .

The first is tap water. You don't drink it or use it to wash your face or brush your teeth. Instead you pay a stripling young man to lug a 20 liter bottle of purified water upstairs to your apartment once a week. You pay him $14 pesos (about $1.40 USD) for the water, tip him another $6 pesos, and he seems very grateful, especially when you factor in that the average wage in Oaxaca is about $4 a day. Another oddity was putting your used toilet paper in the wastepaper basket instead of flushing it down the toilet. Different - a little strange at first - but after a week or so it becomes routine

Fillerup: All of that said, there are three things I absolutely positively will not miss in any way whatsoever: (1) the air pollution, which isn't nearly as bad as in other Mexican cities, but compared to Flagstaff . . . Folks, we're breathing pure oxygen here. (2) The mosquitoes (which go on mating rampages every time it rains: fortunately, we missed most of the wet season); and (3) the deafening roar of the buses which sounds something like that dinosaur stampede in the new KING KONG movie, or maybe like Kong himself when he realizes he's been duped by a blonde.

Reporter: What do you miss the most about Oaxaca ?

Fillerup: Besides the many wonderful friends I made during my short stay? I miss the sound of Spanish ever-present in the streets, and the way that a simple "buenos dias" can instantly light up even the most seamed and disenfranchised face.

I miss the abundance and outrageousness of colors and the church bells waking us each morning at 6:30 sharp calling the faithful to mass, and the humility of young, old and in-betweens crossing themselves as they pass by the open door of the Carmen Alto church. I miss the daily promise of pure blue skies and shameless sun and the flowers blossoming all year long in color-coded succession - taking turns center stage, but always a big bright variation of blooms: golds, reds, purples, magentas. I miss the way you can walk down the street in the morning and buy a pastry from the crew-cut fellow in the pastleria and fresh muffins from the young ladies in the panaderia and then drop off your laundry to the young husband and wife in the lavanderia.

You then pass through the magical, mystical world of the Mercado, a bizarre blend of the Arabian Nights meets Wal-Mart, where you can buy just about anything: fresh fruits, vegetables, and fruit drinks (fresh squeezed), blouses, shirts, coats, backpacks, paper and office supplies, flowers, fast food, sit down food, stand-up food, you name it.

I miss the way you can go to the peluqueria for a haircut and it's only $40 pesos, $4 American, and you have so little hair he could finish the job in a few quick snips but he takes his time, a good hour or more, chatting about sports, politics, the weather, and you learn that he is 70 years old but still riding his bike in competition, in fact he'll be competing next weekend, and when he asks how much time you have left in Oaxaca and you tell him two weeks, he winces and tells you you'll have to return soon, and he seems to really really mean it, especially when he reminds you of an old Oaxaquenan saying that if you want to return to Oaxaca, eat lots of chapulines (grasshoppers, on sale in bulk in the mercado). So you tell him you'll do that, you will absolutely 100% do that, you'll double the order if you have to, triple it even, and when you say this he smiles and the bits of gold in his badly chipped teeth sparkle.

I miss all of that, like I miss my almost daily encounters with old Franco Martin, lugging two huge bags, his " trabajito ," one in each arm. He is 90 years old, half my size but twice my heart. He greets me with a big, gummy smile and calls me "joven," young man, and for that I will love him forever. He is still wearing the two mismatched high-top sneakers he was wearing when I met him eight months ago and gave him $100 pesos to buy a new pair. The new jacket I bought him to replace the tattered sweater he wore all winter remains in some unknown place. He has just returned from morning mass wearing his daily uniform: an old buckskin colored shirt and brown dungarees, the ragged cuffs tucked into his floppy sneakers.

We talk for a bit, and then he tells me he has to deliver his pollitos--the little chickens he totes around to the local restaurants every morning. " Gracias a Dios ," he says at least a dozen times during our conversation, "thanks to God," and as he limps away lugging the two bags that weigh almost as much as he does, he appears to be incredibly and amazingly happy. He stops, looks back

once more, and lifts a hand toward the sky. “ Gracias a Dios, eh joven ! Gracias a Dios !” I nod, smile, and mouth the words back to him: “ Por supuesto, gracias a Dios .”