Scholar and distinguished linguist Dr. Maria Juliette Escudero specialized in Romance Literature and studied at the Institute of Phonetics and Linguistics at the University of Paris, where she earned a French teaching diploma. She received a Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics from Cornell University in New York in 1948. That same year, Dr. Escudero was recognized for her scholarship and hired by Dr. Grady Gammage, President of Arizona State College in Tempe, now known as Arizona State University.
Dr. Maria Escudero is the first Mexican American AND the first Mexican American woman hired as an Assistant Professor at Arizona State College (ASC) / Arizona State University (ASU). She began teaching Spanish in the Foreign Languages Department in 1948. Her dissertation, “Contemplación del Quijote,” linked to her expertise of the writing style of Miguel de Cervantes and her strengths in Romance Literature caught the imagination of students who soon made Dr. Escudero a popular and well-respected faculty member in the department. Her approach to teaching Spanish literature and linguistics was friendly and easygoing. She was mild-mannered, small in stature, but mighty in the classroom. What made her endearing was that she rode her bicycle to campus every day, a practice she kept from her days as a college student studying French in Paris, France, during the mid-1940s.
Soon after Dr. Escudero arrived at Arizona State College (ASC), she became a faculty adviser to two important and progressive student organizations at ASC/SU: “Los Conquistadores,” the first Mexican American student organization founded in 1939, and “La Liga Panamericana.” Los Conquistadores, whose interests in promoting the Mexican culture and Spanish language led them to become influenced by the the Latin American Club, a progressive Mexican American civil rights organization in Maricopa County founded in 1947 by WW II veteran, Luís Cordova, a Mexican American railroad worker in Phoenix.
“La Liga Panamericana” promoted international goodwill and strong friendships with Latin American countries. Both student organizations, “Los Conquistadores” and “La Liga Panamericana,” enabled students to participate in political, social, and academic activities that strengthened their bilingual skills and promoted academic leadership. The organizations helped open economic opportunities for Mexican and Mexican American students through scholarships and grants in Arizona.
By 1955, Dr. Escudero earned the rank of Associate Professor of Spanish, the first Mexican American faculty member to do so. She became Full Professor in 1967 and received Tenure in that same year. University records show that Dr. Maria Juliette Escudero is the first Mexican American Full Professor AND the first Mexican American Female Professor to receive Tenure in 1967. — “Chiquita, pero picosa,” her students of Spanish described her: “small, but mighty,” they said proudly.
Sources: Arizona State College. Tempe. Bulletin. 1948-1950; Arizona State College. Tempe. Catalogs. 1953-1958; Arizona State University. General Catalogs, 1959-1980. (University Archives. Hayden Library. Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona).