How José Medina is Saving Bilingual Students

EL PASO :  José Medina is not your average researcher. With a “telenovela-level energy” and a snapping finger, the 54-year-old former principal is currently the most influential voice in the world of bilingual education.

Through his viral TikToks and nationwide coaching, Medina is on a mission to dismantle what he calls “linguistic oppression”—the practice of telling students that their native language or the way they speak it (such as using Spanglish) is “wrong.”

Medina’s passion is rooted in a traumatic childhood in 1970s El Paso. As a young child who spoke no English, he was ridiculed and labeled with slurs. When his parents enrolled him in a Catholic school, the experience was harrowing: nuns tied him to a gurney to force him into a classroom where his identity was stripped away, and he was renamed “Joe.”

“I knew that at a very young age, I wanted to not be alive,” Medina recalls. “I wished that I would disappear.” Today, he shares this testimonio to ensure today’s teachers understand the stakes of identity-based exclusion.

For Medina, true inclusion is intersectional. He speaks openly about his 22-year marriage to his husband and advocates for LGBTQ+ students, even when it sparks controversy among traditionalists.

“Once we own the fact that we’re linguistic oppressors, we can become linguistic oppressors in recovery,” Medina says. For him, “recovery” means creating a classroom where a child’s language, culture, and gender identity are not just tolerated, but celebrated as assets.