Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

This presentation of the Coral Way Bilingual Program celebrates the historic events from 1961 through 1968 that shaped the first publicly funded bilingual and bicultural immersion program in the country at Coral Way Elementary School in Miami, Florida. Presentations by Maria Coady, PhD, professor of bilingual education in UF’s College of Education; Bess de Farber, grants manager for the UF George A. Smathers Libraries and alumnus of the first bilingual class at Coral Way; and, Britanny Kester, librarian for the UF Education Library offer background on who led the effort to seek funding from the Ford Foundation, the Cuban Aides who were hired at minimum wage to work with Spanish learners, how the program was structured in terms of separating the language speakers of English and Spanish, the initial seven goals of the program, and examples of primary materials collected including oral histories that are freely available online in a new UF digital collection. Copies of the recently released book authored by Dr. Coady, The Coral Way Bilingual Program (2019, Multilingual Matters), will be distributed to participants in both presentations.

To view the Coral Way Digital Collection, visit: https://ufdc.ufl.edu/coralway​

This event is sponsored by a Programs in the Public Humanities Grant from the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere (Rothman Endowment).

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Bess de Farber