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Teaching Bilingually Is Cool


Back in 2002, when Language Magazine published its March issue with “Being Bilingual Is Cool” emblazoned on the cover along with a picture of a bilingual LA DJ, the enthusiastic response from much of the multicultural community indicated how bilingualism had become disrespected, almost a flaw— especially in California, where a media campaign had been waged to garner support for the infamous Proposition 227 that banned bilingual education.

Now, thanks to activists, educators, researchers, and many artists, including megastars like J.Lo, Shakira, and Bad Bunny, nearly everyone agrees that being bilingual is cool, and it’s starting to be recognized as a valuable asset for all students. The Seal of Biliteracy has now been adopted in every state apart from South Dakota and we have an education secretary who is not only bilingual himself but also calls bilingualism a “superpower” and who recently said, “Let’s foster a new multilingual generation of Americans—strengthened in their identities, supported in their education, prepared to lead in our country and around the world.”

However, to “foster a new multilingual generation” we need more than the will to make it happen. We need schools and educators specifically designed and trained to nurture the heritage-language skills with which this country is blessed. We need world languages to be a part of school from kindergarten, and we need access to dual-language programs nationwide.

Protecting against heritage-language loss is key, as Kim Potowski explains in this issue: “There is abundant evidence that almost every heritage language in the US is no longer spoken by the third generation. High-quality heritage-language instruction might help curb this loss by encouraging heritage speakers to value their ways of speaking and to develop strong levels of proficiency through well-constructed language arts activities.”

Despite the coolness of being bilingual and its practical benefits, having a second language is still seen by many policymakers as a luxury unless it’s English. Last month, Arizona superintendent of public instruction Tom Horne asked the state’s attorney general’s office for legal advice to determine whether dual language programs comply with a ballot initiative passed by voters more than 20 years ago that essentially banned bilingual education for English learners.

So, it’s clear that advocacy efforts must continue, but probably the best way to get the message across is to lead by example. School systems will only produce multilingual students successfully on a large scale if there are enough qualified educators who reflect the races and cultures of their students. At the moment, we are not training enough teachers to replace those leaving the profession, let alone the extra bilingual educators needed to make the next generation multilingual. We need to convince young graduates that teaching bilingually is cool too and encourage bilinguals to make the most of their superpower by sharing it with others, while opening all avenues to the profession, including community colleges and minority-serving institutions, to help encourage diversity. A fast-flowing teacher pipeline will produce the student successes needed to prove that being bilingual is a coolness that we all deserve.

Promoting Transnational Education

There may not be a direct correlation, but it appears that international conflicts and tensions have increased in the wake of the pandemic and its associated lockdowns. We have also been experiencing a global rise in the popularity of nationalist policies and politicians, which seemed highly unlikely just a few years ago when globalization was the mantra. At the same time, resistance has increased against migration, even when it’s refugees fleeing from conflict. To counter these disturbing trends, educators and policymakers should seek every opportunity to promote transnational education, be it through insisting on language and culture programs, encouraging internet collaboration with classes abroad, student exchange programs, or any form of study abroad.

The closure of borders and travel restrictions had a devastating effect on study abroad programs, especially here in the US, where government policy left many students from overseas stranded and reliant on charity to survive. Prior to the pandemic, China was a primary source of international students for several destination countries, sending out more than 710,000 students in 2019, of which 73% were in higher education. However, with the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Chinese students cancelled or changed their plans to study abroad for safety reasons or because of travel restrictions. More concerning is that the number of Chinese students in the US actually decreased from 2021 to 2022 after travel restrictions were lifted.

We have a much better chance of the US and China coexisting as amicable superpowers if the next generation of Chinese leaders have been welcomed as students in America, but we have been discouraging them, particularly through tighter visa regulations. By the same token, more US students should be encouraged to study overseas, especially in China. Although figures are hopefully rebounding somewhat now, only 382 Americans officially studied in China in 2020/21, down from over 11,000 in 2018/19. However, the prospect of thousands more Americans flocking to study in China is very unlikely when interest in learning Chinese has waned among students and parents of younger children. Nor has the situation been helped by the forced closure of Confucius Institutes in the US (and overseas) on the basis that they were controlled by the Chinese government, when that was always known from when they first opened.

Moving forward, new technologies and training in virtual learning could make international education and exchange easier to facilitate. We have seen institutions opening virtual pathways for students to participate in collaborative online learning (COIL) and in international internships, which could encourage cross-border understanding. But it’s likely that in the same way diverse communities need to interact together in informal ways to truly break down barriers, students from diverse cultures need unscripted social interaction to properly integrate. There need to be more opportunities for students to play and socialize together online, as well as collaborate on their studies.

As conflict between nations rises, we must respond by encouraging educational and cultural cooperation and collaboration. Whatever the ambitions of political leaders, mistrust and fear between peoples can be countered by proximity and understanding. Learning about distinct cultures and learning with people from different countries provides a basis on which we can all progress peacefully.

Fear and Learning in Washington

The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives has wasted little time in pushing ahead with its agenda of restricting progress in schools, banking on the idea that more Americans than the small minority of conservative, vocal parent agitators want today’s students to experience the same education they did 40 years ago. Although their bill has no chance of being passed by the Democratic-run Senate, it is an indicator of GOP intent to influence education policy and practice at the federal level, despite the right wing of the party campaigning to defund the Department of Education. It brings the far-right movement of banning books, whitewashing history, and restricting transgender students from school board meetings and state legislatures to Washington.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has made the Parents’ Bill of Rights Act a priority, claiming GOP lawmakers were “keeping our promise, our commitment to America, that parents will have a say in their kids’ education.” The bill passed 213–208, with only five Republicans—mostly members of the Orwellian-named House Freedom Caucus—voting against it. More than 100 Republicans supported an amendment to terminate the Department of Education’s authority and endorsed vouchers that would send public funds to private schools.

The bill would require schools to publish course curricula and lists of books kept in their libraries and would reaffirm parents’ ability to regularly meet with educators, speak at school board meetings, and examine school budgets—much of which is already common practice, highlighting the symbolism of the legislation.

Conservatives’ attacks on the teaching profession have migrated from local school board fights to Republican-held statehouses and now to the floor of the US House.

“I think what we’re seeing here today is the Republican Party’s attempt to take some of the most heinous legislation that we are seeing passed on the state level to attack our trans and LGBT [students’], as well as people from marginalized communities, right to exist in schools,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) said during the bill’s debate.

Public school education in the US has become an issue that many conservatives believe they can use to bolster support from parents and other voters who are being led to believe that inclusivity will somehow lead to amorality. This is not a new tactic—in the past, parents’ rights and the protection of children have been cited as justification for segregation, limiting girls’ education, and monolingual instruction.

Attempted book bans and restrictions at school and public libraries doubled in 2022 to their highest number since the American Library Association began keeping records, according to a new report. The association said that the “vast majority” of the targeted books were “written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color.”

“Parents want schools focused on reading, writing, and math, not woke politics,” claimed Rep. Mary Miller (R-Illinois) during the debate. Teachers also want to focus on reading, writing, and math within an inclusive environment in which all students are valued and their social– emotional needs are recognized.

The US public education system and its educators have provided the bedrock for this society of diverse immigrants to flourish over the last century. For that very reason, they will always have their detractors, but critics should beware of fear mongering that may lead to increasing divisions within our society.

Laying Down the Law

Every few years, education bubbles up to the top of the political agenda in state capitols across the US and legislatures scramble to pass bills that seek to bind the state’s education policy to the prevailing political ideology. This is to be expected—education is often top of the political agenda for many voters, and it is also one of the key policy areas where states reign supreme over the federal government. States have to decide education budgets and often define curricula, but are policymakers, let alone voters, really qualified to decide on methodology—how teachers teach?

Delaware and Illinois have recently passed media literacy education mandates that specify curriculum changes, while New Jersey and Pennsylvania are considering similar provisions. And, in Illinois, the Right to Read Act has been divided up into three bills, one of which requires the State Board of Education to create a list of evidence-based reading programs but does not yet stipulate that they have to be used. The majority of states have passed legislation in the past few years that requires reading instruction to be evidence-based. Other states have gone further—Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Colorado have all passed laws requiring “science of reading” practices to be used in elementary literacy instruction.

As evidenced by the ongoing series of articles in this magazine, the science of reading is not a particular methodology, but policymakers are being selective in their interpretation of the science in order to promote the methodologies that they favor. Literacy experts have made it clear that the science of reading is not a single, specific component of instruction, such as phonics, nor is it a one-size-fits-all approach, but it is a “vast, interdisciplinary body of scientifically-based research about reading and issues related to reading and writing” (Kurto, 2023). Therein lies the difficulty— attempting to frame legislation with mass appeal that can accommodate such a broad definition. Not only is it very difficult to legislate on education methodologies, it’s also dangerous. Voters and policymakers need to recognize that, despite having access to an organized body of research like the science of reading, they are not expert enough to interpret all of it, let alone to decide how it should be used in practice. Look what happened when a concerted campaign was run to outlaw bilingual education in California and so-called evidence was skewed to convince voters to pass Proposition 227. It took over ten years for the measure to be overturned, despite overwhelming research showing the inferiority of English-only instruction.

Critics of this recent spate of legislation stipulating that teachers use specific methodologies in their classroom say they limit what’s available to educators. Rachael Gabriel, a professor of literacy education at the University of Connecticut, has compared bans on “cueing”—teaching readers to use context and picture clues to identify unknown words—to laws that prohibit teaching about race and sexuality in schools.

“It’s that same notion of saying we are going to narrow what’s possible and control the heck out of it,” she says, adding that these laws come out of “a stream of authoritarianism,” with “this distrust of expertise and of universities and of science and the sort of traditional ways that we would authorize good science.”

Buying a different curriculum does not mean that reading levels will necessarily improve. The most influential indicator of student success is still the expertise of their teachers. And we must allow our highly trained educators the space and freedom to choose the (evidence-based) methodologies that they judge will best suit their particular students.

Allow Teachers Their Own Voices

Facing the most severe teacher shortage in history, with record levels of dissatisfaction in the profession and an acute shortage of racially diverse teachers, it’s almost ironic that we are exacerbating the situation by allowing politicians, business owners, and parents to tell teachers not only what they can teach but how they have to teach it.

The National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) latest survey results show that, as of August 2022, 53% of all public schools reported feeling understaffed entering the 2022–23 school year, and 69% reported too few candidates as the biggest challenge to hiring teachers.

A recent survey by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) found that in 2019, US colleges awarded fewer than 90,000 undergraduate degrees in education, down from nearly 200,000 a year in the early 1970s, and that in the last ten years alone, the number of people completing traditional teacher-prep programs has dropped by 35%.

Even more disturbing, the survey found education to be one of the least diverse degree programs. Although 55% of US students are not White, nearly 70% of prospective teachers are White, the AACTE analysis found. In 2019, the only degree program with less diversity was agriculture.

The lack of diversity among prospective teachers is not only the mathematical cause of the overall teacher shortage, it is degrading the quality of education all of our students receive. All students benefit from having teachers of color. While minority students have higher test scores and increased enrollment in advanced classes when their teachers look like them, White students also show improved problem-solving, critical-thinking skills, and creativity.

Of course, money plays a big role in career decision-making and teacher salaries do not compare to those in professions requiring similar qualifications, despite some recent progress in certain states. Still, respect for educators, recognition of their expertise, and trust in their judgement will encourage graduates, especially those who want to make a difference in society, into the teaching profession, and may even result in recognition that they deserve better pay.

US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona recently said there should be greater engagement of educators in devising education policy, along with opening up avenues to advancement within the profession through “master teacher” roles and increased teacher leadership opportunities.

At the same time, ambitious politicians are pandering to populist fears of “indoctrination” and threats to the status quo by banning books and curricula as well as dictating how teachers teach. Manipulating parents against teachers may boost polling numbers in the short term, but it undermines our public school system, the foundation of this country. Any legislation that stipulates how teachers perform the profession in which they’ve been trained is demeaning to the profession as a whole and sends a clear signal to anyone contemplating a career in teaching that their opinion, even when it is expert, will not be valued.

To build upon the progress being made in recognizing endemic inequity and working toward overcoming it, we need the current cohort of students to be educated by racially diverse role models who are respected and trusted to teach in the best interests of all their students.

Fair Refuge

The treatment of refugees and other migrants trying to enter supposedly civilized countries has reached new lows recently with more deaths worldwide, including at Spain’s Ceuta border with Morocco, in the Mediterranean between Europe and Africa, in the English Channel between France and the UK, between Belarus and Poland, and at the US southern border.

This may be a consequence of rising nationalism or one of the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the closing of borders and scapegoating of entire nationalities somehow became acceptable. Whatever the reason, we should denounce xenophobia and support the provision of a haven for migrants who have risked everything in search of a better life.

Language learning is never more apparent than when people are on the move. Migrants and travelers know that adopting the language of their destination is key to successful interactions, be they commercial or social, and we know how keenly they apply themselves to that study so that they can succeed in their new homes.

Just as the COVID-era Title 42 “public health” restriction on migration was coming to an end, the Biden administration has given in to fear mongering and resurrected the policy to restrict at-risk people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela from entering the US, while offering others with more resources a new route into the country.

Under the new plan, migrants from the listed countries can pass background checks, buy plane tickets, and secure financial sponsorship to legally enter the US under a “parole program,” which grants work visas for two years.

However, migrants without such resources would be ineligible if they failed to seek protection in a third country before reaching the US—yet these are the people in the most need of asylum, many of whom are Indigenous Americans whose ancestors predated our borders by millennia.

Biden’s decision to continue and even expand Title 42 restrictions runs contrary to the president’s campaign promises and further persecutes disadvantaged and Indigenous American migrants. The administration’s new proposals even include allowing asylum seekers to use an app in English and Spanish to schedule appointments, making the legal process even harder for migrants who lack technological access and speak Indigenous languages, as well as for those who cannot obtain legal representation to help them navigate the process.

It’s time to admit that COVID presented itself as a convenient excuse for anti-immigrant factions to justify border closures and impose inhumane rules on millions of fellow human beings looking for safety, for opportunity to contribute to the overall well-being of their new neighbors, or just to scrape their way out of poverty.

Greenlandic MP refuses to speak Danish in Parliament

During a debate in the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen, a Greenlandic MP has refused to speak Danish, instead speaking entirely in her native Inuit language. The move caused frustration among Danish-speaking lawmakers in the room and drew attention to unstable ties between Denmark and Greenland.

MP Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam, was one of two members of the Danish parliament representing Greenland during a debate last Friday, and gave a almost seven-minute speech in Greenlandic about relations between the two countries.

Høegh-Dam, of half Danish and half ethnically Greenlandic heritage, refused to repeat the speech in Danish, when asked by the Speaker of the Parliament.

Greenland, an island country that lies between the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans, was a Danish colony until 1953, when it became a formal part of the Kingdom of Denmark. In 2009, Greenland was granted self-governing autonomy which includes the right to declare independence from Denmark.

It has its own official, Indigenous Inuit language called Kalaallisut, and Danish is taught as a second language from the first year of elementary school. Kalaallisut is Eskimo-Aleut language spoken by approximately 50,000 Greenlanders and bears no resemblance to Danish. It is however closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada such as Inuvialuktun, Inuinnaqtun and the three dialects of Inuktitut. 

Tunumiit and Inuktun are the two other native languages of Greenland and are spoken in minority. 

Relations between Denmark and Greenland have recently become strained, after last year’s revelations of misconduct by Danish authorities in Greenland during the 20th century. This included the mistreatment of Greenlandic women. 

Høegh-Dam explained after the debate that her speech had focused on the recent revelations. “I don’t understand why it is so odious to be allowed to speak what is categorised as the official language of Greenland, which is my constituency” she said, adding –

“We are no longer afraid to speak out. We are not afraid to use our voice and our language. The spirit of change is here, and the next step in the right direction would be state formation,”. 

Her speech marked a significant week for Greenland, in which a draft constitution was presented to the Danish parliament. 

During the debate Danish MP Karsten Hønge said “This is a difficult dialogue. I know that the speaker was born in Denmark and speaks fluent Danish”.

Study Abroad Grant Program Reintroduced to Senate

U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) today reintroduced the bipartisan, bicameral Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Program Act, which renames a competitive grant program run by the Department of State to the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Program.  The grant encourages institutions of higher education to sustainably expand study abroad opportunities to nontraditional locations for underserved American undergraduate students.  It is named after the late U.S. Senator Paul Simon, who encouraged Congress to prepare the next generation of Americans with the global knowledge and skills needed for success in an increasingly interconnected world. 

“Senator Paul Simon always knew the value of understanding how the world works and how we are all interconnected,” Durbin said.  “This legislation builds on Senator Simon’s vision by creating opportunities for American students of all backgrounds to see and experience the world.  By giving the next generation of students the chance to study abroad, they will be better prepared to lead successful lives and expand their worldview.”

“Study abroad is a valuable experience for many American college students who hope to become our country’s future leaders,” Wicker said. “I appreciate this effort to expand access to study abroad for thousands of undergraduates who would not otherwise have the opportunity.”

House companion legislation has been introduced by U.S. Representatives Brad Schneider (D-IL-10) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA-01).

“Diverse, international experiences are incredibly valuable for today’s students who want to compete for jobs in tomorrow’s economy and lead the way in building a more prosperous, peaceful, and stable future.  Senator Paul Simon championed study abroad for American students of all backgrounds and I am proud to get to carry on his legacy with this bipartisan bill co-led by Congressman Fitzpatrick and Senators Durbin and Wicker,” Schneider said.

“Study abroad programs are an enriching component of a well-rounded academic and cultural education.  Providing our students with the opportunity to visit, study in, and be our ambassadors to nations around the world is essential for American leadership in the 21st century,” said Fitzpatrick.  “I am proud to introduce the bipartisan Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Program Act alongside my colleagues and ensure that over the next decade, 1 million students from every walk of life and background are able to take advantage of international education programs.”

According to UNESCO, nearly 1.1 million Chinese college students study abroad annually while only 110,000 American college students do.  Students of color, first-generation college students, community college students, and students with disabilities are underrepresented in study abroad participation.   

The goals of the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Program are to:

  • Increase the number of undergraduate students studying abroad annually to one million students within 10 years;
  • Increase the number of minority students, first generation college students, community college students, and students with disabilities studying abroad by prioritizing grants for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Minority Serving Institutions, and institutions that qualify for the Department of Education’s Strengthening Institutions Program, so the demographics of study abroad participation better reflect the demographics of the undergraduate population; and
  • Increase the number of students who study abroad in nontraditional destinations, with an emphasis on economically developing countries, while maintaining health and safety guidelines and procedures informed by Department of State travel advisories and other appropriate Federal agencies and resources.

The bill seeks to implement those recommendations of the 2004 Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program authorized by Congress to provide recommendations on how to expand opportunities for American undergraduate students to study abroad with a special emphasis on study abroad in economically disadvantaged countries. 

This bill is supported by Language Magazine, NAFSA: Association of International Educators, American Association of Community Colleges, American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), American Association of Teachers of French, American Council on Education, American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), American Councils for International Education, Association of American Universities, Association of Marshall Scholars, California Language Teachers’ Association (CLTA), Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, Institute of International Education, Joint National Committee for Languages, Linguistic Society of America, National Education Association, TESOL International Association, The Forum on Education Abroad, United Negro College Fund, and many other organizations.

“Study abroad experiences are essential to the career-readiness and intercultural competency of U.S. college graduates and by extension, our country’s workforce. For too long, minority, first-generation, community college students, and students with disabilities have faced barriers to accessing these opportunities,” said Fanta Aw, PhD, Executive Director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators.  “We applaud the bill’s Senate champions for their commitment to ensuring that all students at all types of institutions have access to study abroad programs, in a wide range of countries.”

“In 2003, my father spent most of his final year on this earth lobbying his former colleagues on Capitol Hill to embrace the idea of making study abroad the norm, and not the exception, in this country,” said Martin H. Simon, Senator Simon’s son.  “One of my father’s protégés, Sen. Dick Durbin, has worked hard to keep Dad’s vision for this program alive and I thank him and Sen. Wicker for re-introducing this bipartisan legislation.”

Bill text is available here.

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Zelenskyy Promotes English in Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is seeking to establish English as one of several international languages of communication in Ukraine. The plan is to pass legislation regulating the use of English in the country and enforce a mandatory level of proficiency for specific official positions. Guidelines for the usage of English would also be implemented across certain governmental and commercial sectors. 

Flags of European Union and Ukraine against European Parliament bulding in Brussels, Belgium

Draft law 9432 “On the use of the English language in Ukraine,” introduced to the Ukrainian Parliament on June 28, aims to determine which jobs/positions require knowledge of English to further boost international relations. Long term, it also aims to regulate and standardize the use of English in state and local governments, including in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as well as for emergency services, signage, border crossings, education, culture, transport, and healthcare.

“The transformation of the status of the English language in Ukraine is a necessity and a strategic step towards full membership of our country in the European Union, because knowledge of English is a key requirement for globalization and change,” the bill’s explanatory introduction reads. 

It adds, “Adoption of this Law will contribute to the mastering of the English language by Ukrainian citizens, to the integration of Ukrainians into the European community, to Ukraine’s process of globalization, and to increasing its level of competitiveness, as well as the growth of investment and tourism.”  

The draft also outlines provisions that would be required to bring English-medium roles up to date. 

If the Ukrainian parliament passes the bill, English proficiency will become mandatory for heads of local administrations and their deputies, military officers, middle and senior police officers, prosecutors, tax and customs officials, heads of state-owned enterprises, and civil servants.

The Ministry of Education and science will offer free language tests to assess levels of proficiency for applicants to these roles. 

The move to push English in Ukraine comes amid the ongoing invasion from Russia which has led to a rejection of Russian. Under the rule of the Tsars and for much of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Russian was widely used in Ukraine as a language of communication, particularly in Eastern border cities such as Kharkiv. In some of these cities, the Ukrainian language was suppressed and was even viewed as the language of uneducated people, or angled to represent political rebellion.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukrainian census data has shown a rise in native Ukrainian speakers, making up a consistent majority – although many Ukrainians are proficient in Russian and consider themselves bilingual.

Over the last decade, particularly since Russia’s unrecognized takeover of Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk regions, many ethnic Ukrainians have chosen to stop speaking Russian. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this rejection has increased. 

Research conducted by Volodymyr Kulyk, head research fellow at the Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies at Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, shows that in 2012, only about 10% of the population in southern and eastern Ukraine spoke Ukrainian as their language of convenience, this rose to more than 70% in 2022. 

“The act of choosing is linguistically significant but also politically significant. Before the 2022 invasion, most people in the east and south of Ukraine preferred Russian and saw no problem in being seen as people preferring Russian. Now they are understanding it is the wrong thing to do, and they don’t want to be speaking Russian to a stranger,” Kulyk told the Guardian. 

For many Ukrainians, being part of the fastest linguistic shift in the country’s history is an act of resistance.

Nicaraguan Wins Reina Sofia Poetry Prize

Exiled Nicaraguan poet and novelist Gioconda Belli, known for her feminist literature, has been awarded the Reina Sofia Ibero-American Poetry prize.

Belli’s work has been translated into more than 20 languages and includes 15 poetry collections, eight novels, and seven books of essays, testimonials, and children’s stories. The prize is considered the most important for Spanish and Portuguese poetry.

Her first poems were published in the Managua newspaper La Prensa when she was 20 years old. Her first poetry collection, Sobre la grama, or On the Grass, was published in 1972.

“I couldn’t be happier than to have won this poetry prize,” Belli said via Twitter. “I celebrate the enriching of Nicaragua’s poetry tradition. I dedicate it to my Nicaragua, mother of my inspiration, sorrowful country of my hope. Long live poetry!!!” Belli was stripped of her Nicaraguan citizenship by the government of President Ortega and lives in Spain. Along with those of other prominent critics of Ortega’s regime, Belli’s properties in Nicaragua were seized by the government in February. Ricardo Rivero, rector of Spain’s Salamanca University, which jointly awards the prize, said in a statement announcing the prize winner that beyond the quality of Belli’s literature, she has defended “values like the dignity of a person, the fight against tyranny, and the maintaining of a coherent position at all times.”

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