Hitting the books: Autobiography an educational journey of perseverance, achievement and remembrance

Nasario García’s autobiography, “Beyond My Adobe Schoolhouse: My Life in Education” is a remarkable story of perseverance, achievement and remembrance.

García’s first educational setting was the one-room La Mesa School. It was about a 20-minute ride over a winding dirt road from the rural village of Ojo del Padre in New Mexico’s Rio Puerco Valley. The author grew up on a ranch/farm near the village.

Hitting the books: Autobiography an educational journey of perseverance, achievement and remembrance

His first teacher was Miss Montoya, who taught grades one through eight, switching her instruction between English and Spanish. Spanish was the spoken language at home of the families whose kids attended the school.

Each day, once the older students had finished their class assignments, they helped tutor the younger ones in reading, writing and solving math problems. García said that was why fifth through eighth graders were seated at desks with those in the lower grades.

“This approach to learning was a practical way of maximizing class time for Miss Montoya, who could not teach all grades at once,” García writes.

García recalls a large container resting next to Miss Montoya’s desk. It was a five-gallon wooden barrel wrapped in burlap and filled with drinking water for the students. Hanging from a nail attached to the barrel was an aluminum dipper and a dish towel to wipe the dipper clean after students took a sip or two of water.

In the middle of the room, he remembers, was a wood-burning potbelly stove to heat the room in winter months. The older boys were responsible for stoking the fire.

The book offers the reader more than details of the author’s ups and downs in his academic life. Rather, it takes a broader look, with descriptions of physical environments, of relationships with fellow students, with teachers and others the author came to know over many decades.

Severe drought and García’s father’s loss of employment forced the family to leave the Rio Puerco Valley.

So after two years at La Mesa, García and his family moved to Albuquerque’s Santa Barbara/Martineztown neighborhood. The family home was actually a storage room on property owned by his paternal grandparents. Several years later, the growing family — García was the oldest of eight — relocated to a two-room adobe house in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.

At Garfield Junior High, García remembers a Mr. Valerio, who was an inspiring Spanish teacher. “His class was important to me because I could speak my native language in a classroom setting. His emphasis on language and culture instilled pride regarding one’s ethnicity and family roots,” he writes.

García continued struggling with English.

He transferred to Washington Junior High, where, he said, some Hispanic gang members brought a variety of weapons to school on the sly — pocket knives, chains, brass knuckles. One kid even carried a short machete under his shirt, he writes.

García was not affiliated with any gang.

He recalled being baffled by some unfamiliar street Spanish he heard, such as refinar (to eat), ramfla (car), and chante (home).

He attended Albuquerque High School for his sophomore and junior years and transferred to the then-new Valley High School for his senior year, which proved to be the most rewarding and exciting year of his public education.

After two years in the army, Garcia enrolled at the University of New Mexico. He writes that “the one black cloud that hovered over me was the English Proficiency Examination.” He passed the exam on the third try.

Three professors, primarily Albert R. Lopes, who taught beginning Spanish, encouraged García to pursue a study of languages. He took their advice.

At the time, García hardly realized that Spanish, “my mother tongue, inherently linked to my Northern New Mexico roots, would be key to my success as a student and as a professor.”

In fact, that cultural and linguistic background opened the door to his study of Portuguese, Italian and Latin.

He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of New Mexico, did doctoral work at the University of Granada in Spain, and earned a doctorate in 19th century Spanish Literature from the University of Pittsburgh.

García went on to teach at Chatham College, Northern Illinois University and the University of Southern Colorado. He’s been a college-level lecturer in many countries and was also a university administrator.

The 88-year-old García is a respected historian, scholar, children’s book author and folklorist. He and his wife Janice live in Santa Fe.

He’s thankful that teachers, professors and his parents encouraged him to continue his studies. García said his mother never attended school and his father had a fifth-grade education.