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Gwendolyn Díaz

Louis Mendoza

Pat Mora

Great Lives from History: Latinos

Amalia Mondríguez

by María Félix-Ortiz

Puerto Rican-born educator and writer

A well-respected professor of Spanish in San Antonio, Mondríguez has written books and created classes that aim to teach Spanish to professionals. She also has edited other authors’ Spanish-language works, including children’s books.

Areas of achievement: Education; literature

Early Life

Amalia Mondríguez (ah-MAHL-ee-ah mon-DREE-gehs) was born in Humacao, Puerto Rico, to Víctor Mondríguez and Celia Torres. She was raised in Las Piedras and educated in that city’s public school system. Through community mobilization, her mother established El Centro de Envejecientes de Las Piedras, a home for older adults eventually renamed in her mother’s honor. Her mother was an important influence in Mondríguez’s life. At age nine, Mondríguez began her career in education at her mother’s suggestion when she tutored a younger neighborhood boy.

Mondríguez obtained her masters degree in Spanish literature from the University of Puerto Rico in 1980. Her hundred-page master’s thesis provided what she described as “four approaches” to Gabriel García Márquez’s novella El coronel no tiene quiene le escriba (1961; No One Writes to the Colonel, 1968), and she defended the thesis as if it were a doctoral dissertation. After receiving her degree, she was an instructor and head of tutorial services for three years at Turabo University in Gurabo, Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, she developed a successful Spanish for business class and was an editor for Vanguardia, a publication of the Méndez education Foundation.

Life’s Work

Mondríguez completed her second masters degree at Harvard University, where she met Scott Chaiken, a California native working toward his doctorate in psychology. They married in 1987, and in 1996, Mondríguez gave birth to a son.

While a graduate student, Mondríguez provided editorial assistance to other writers and published literary analyses in several peer-reviewed journals. In 1988, she received Harvard University’s certificate of distinction in teaching and completed her Ph.D. in Spanish. Her doctoral dissertation examined the depiction of women in literary works in “erotic narratives” by several Spanish-language writers, including José Donoso, Carlos Fuentes, and García Márquez.

Mondríguez joined the faculty of Incarnate Word College (now University of the Incarnate Word) in San Antonio, Texas, in 1988. In her first years there, she created innovative courses that tailored Spanish instruction for specific disciplines and wrote a textbook for each: Introduction to Spanish in the Media, Spanish I for Pharmacists, and Spanish II for Pharmacists. In addition, she developed a course on Spanish radio and on Spanish for the health professions. She frequently included service learning as part of her Spanish courses. For example, in 2006, she assigned students to write and produce a series of radio programs about health issues that was broadcast to indigenous people in Peru. In 1993, Incarnate Word College nominated her for the Piper Professor of Texas award. Mondríguez’s interest in teaching is captured in a collection of essays she edited with Melissa Anne Walschak, Toward the Twenty-first Century: The Future of Teaching and Learning (1994).

Mondríguez edited Soñar no cuesta nada: Escritos creativos (2004), a collection of creative writing, which included three of her original works, primarily focused on children and mothers, as well as writings by students. In 2005, she wrote the lyrics and music for a set of original Spanish lullabies that was recorded on a compact disc. In addition to publishing her own original works, Mondríguez assists others in editing Spanish-language children’s books. She helped edit two books written by Carmen Tafolla: Baby Coyoto and the Old Woman (El coyotito y la viejita, 2000) and That’s Not Fair: Emma Tenayuca’s Struggle for Justice (No es justo: La lucha de Emma Tenayuca por la justicia, 2008), the latter of which was cowritten by Sharyll Teneyuca and Terry Ybanez. From 2007 to 2009, Mondríguez was an editor of Spanish children’s books at the Intercultural Development Research Association. She also developed a course focusing on children’s literature in Spanish. In 2009, she was one of the Spanish-language curators of Revolution and Renaissance, Mexico and San Antonio, 1910-2010, an exhibit at The Museo Alameda, a Smithsonian Institution affiliate.

Mondríguez has made numerous community and national presentations, organized children’s book fairs and events celebrating Puerto Rican culture, and mentored or supported Latino writers. She was a member of the Modern Language Association from 1984 to 1996, the Southwest Conference on Latin American Studies from 1988 to 1996, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators from 2007 to 2010. The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio recognized Mondríguez as Volunteer of the Year in 1992, and in 2009, she received the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word’s Sr. Margaret Rose Palmer Award for Education.

Significance

Amalia Mondríguez has been a guardian of the Spanish language, writing her own Spanish-language works, as well as editing works in Spanish by other authors. She has developed innovative courses in Spanish that involve her students in service learning and support professionals in their attempts to serve Spanish speakers. Her own original works transport one into a world that responds lovingly to children and a place in which women control their destinies despite life’s misfortunes. Her support of Spanish-language children’s literature has ensured that a new generation of Latin Americans will enjoy the beauty of the Spanish language, even as they learn English. Her legacy as a Spanish professor also includes service to many protégés for whom she was their quiet and helpful educator.

Further Reading

1 

Mondríguez, Amalia. Desde el otro lado. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Edil, 1991. A collection of Mondríguez’s short stories. In Spanish.

2 

_______, ed. Soñar no cuesta nada: Escritos creativos. San Antonio, Tex.: University of the Incarnate Word, 2004. Translated as “It Costs Nothing to Dream,” this is a collection of work by students in the university’s Spanish program. Mondríguez edited the book, which includes some of her original work. In Spanish.

3 

Walschak, Melissa, and Amalia Mondríguez, eds. Toward the Twenty-first Century: The Future of Teaching and Learning. San Antonio, Tex.: University of the Incarnate Word, 1994. Collection of essays examining future trends in education.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Félix-Ortiz, María. "Amalia Mondríguez." Great Lives from History: Latinos, edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera, Salem Press, 2012. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLL_10013240040551001.
APA 7th
Félix-Ortiz, M. (2012). Amalia Mondríguez. In C. Tafolla & M. P. Cotera (Eds.), Great Lives from History: Latinos. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Félix-Ortiz, María. "Amalia Mondríguez." Edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera. Great Lives from History: Latinos. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2012. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.