AMHERST – The Governor’s Awards in the Humanities were handed out on Oct. 24 and one recipient of the award was Sonia Nieto, professor emerita at the College of Education at The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass).

These awards are a major fundraiser for Mass Humanities and recognizes individuals for their public actions, grounded in an appreciation of the humanities, to enhance civic life in the Commonwealth. Each year, nominees are selected by a Mass Humanities Board of Directors and are confirmed by Gov. Charlie Baker.

Nieto, an author of over a dozen books throughout her career on multicultural education, has devoted her life to providing a support in this area of education that has grown so much over the course of her career. Her first book from 1992 titled, “Affirming Diversity: the Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education” is now in it’s seventh edition and in her eyes, best captures who she is as a writer and educator. The first edition was selected by the Museum of Education at the University of South Carolina as one of the books that helped define education in the 20th century.  

“My first reaction was that I did not deserve this award. I have been extremely fortunate in my life to have so many great things happen to me. You know I’ve worked very hard too, but there are so many incredibly deserving people who haven’t gotten awards,” Nieto said.

Nieto has dedicated her life to teaching and more specifically has focused on the education of students of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, with a special emphasis on Latino students. As the daughter of working-class Puerto Rican immigrants, Nieto grew up learning the values of hard work and always saw support from her parents on everything she did. Growing up in Brooklyn, Nieto only spoke Spanish until she started school and quickly learned to read English.  

“In school, I never saw or heard about anybody like me in books. I didn’t read a book by a Puerto Rican until I was out of college,” Nieto said. “All of that has an impact on your psyche and self-confidence. You start to think there’s something wrong with you and your people rather than with the system that created that kind of perspective and instilled it in you.”

From the time she started school, Nieto knew she wanted to be a teacher because of her perspective seeing teachers who were women have power. Nieto worked hard through her grade schooling and had dreams of going to college. Because going to college was not something her parents had expected or planned for her, Nieto felt she had to ask her father if she could take a chance and attend college.

“It wasn’t because my parents didn’t support our education but simply because they knew very little about it,” Nieto said.  

Her mother had made it to her third year of high school and her father had to leave school in fourth grade to work on a farm. Having such little formal education caused a small gap in the understanding of what education had to offer for Nieto.

“I still remember being very nervous as I waited for him to get home one night. I walked over to him and asked, ‘Papi, can I go to college?’ And he said, ‘Do what you can to get in. And we’ll make sure that we do everything we can to support you.’ And they did, always,” Nieto said.

Nieto attended the former Brooklyn campus of St. John’s University. There she gained experiences that she said gave her the self-confidence she had been lacking and ultimately changed how she interacted with the world. After graduating from St. John’s, Nieto spent a year studying for her master’s degree in a program through New York University in Madrid where she started working in the field of education and also met her future husband.

“Everything fell into place. I think I landed exactly where I was supposed to land. I loved teaching and later being a professor and researcher,” Nieto said.

She first started teaching in an intermediate school in Brooklyn and after that at the first public bilingual school in the Northeast. After several years of teaching elementary and intermediate school, Nieto was recruited to the Puerto Rican Studies Department at Brooklyn College. While she didn’t yet have a doctorate, she was still hired because she had been one of the city’s first bilingual teachers and Brooklyn College was creating a teacher preparation program within the Puerto Rican Studies department of the School of Education.

“My activism started when I became a bilingual teacher in 1972. It was there that I began to understand my responsibility to advocate for students who had been denied the equal and excellent education that all children deserve but that many – particularly children of color and those living in poverty – do not receive,” Nieto said. “That recognition became the impetus for my growing activism rooted in the struggle for public education and especially bilingual education, multicultural education, ethnic studies, and later, social justice more broadly.”

In 1975, Nieto moved to Massachusetts to study for her doctorate. With the field being brand new, it opened up a whole new world for Nieto and gave her what she felt was the language she had been trying to articulate as a teacher and professor. Interested parties can read more of Nieto’s inspirational career journey on masshumanities.org.  

Brian Boyles, executive director of Mass Humanities, expressed his pleasure with Nieto as one of the recipients for this year’s award and how important the humanities are for civilization as a whole.

“Sonia’s a groundbreaking educator. She understood the need for multicultural and bilingual opportunities for people to life themselves up, to gain access to education, and to use the humanities for themselves and their neighborhoods. She’s amazing,” Boyles said. “The humanities are the cornerstone of democracy. They help us understand ourselves, they’re messages we leave for future generations, and the ways we understand the places we live.”

Boyles says Mass Humanities looks for candidates whose impact on their community through their work in the humanities has been exemplary and that model to the entire state what is meant when it is said that the humanities should be a part of everyone’s decision making and opportunities.

Now as a recipient of this award, Nieto gains another token of appreciation for all her hard work and dedication during her career.

“I realized that mentoring has been the most important aspect of both my professional and personal life. Mentoring has a legacy that no book can have because it resides in the people one is able to influence,” Nieto said. “After the books are out of print, the lives that people impact through mentoring will go on.”