ASHLAND — Diana Cortés-Evans was hired in Ashland University’s department of languages and literatures right after the worst years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With no in-person classes and foreign language programs being slashed around the country, Ashland University had closed its Spanish major too. It still offers a Spanish minor, but Ohio remains low in citizens who are bilingual.
In Ohio, 96.3% of U.S.-born citizens speak only English, as compared with 88.6% in the U.S. Cortés-Evans said it’s the state with the second-lowest bilingual population in the country.
Cortés-Evans is originally from Colombia and is a native Spanish speaker. She holds a Ph.D. in Spanish language and literature from the State University of New York-Buffalo. And for her, connecting with others who spoke the language in her new home was important.
So, last year, she started a small initiative, inviting other speakers in the area to come to “La Mesa de Conversación en Español,” or “The Spanish Conversation Table.”
“I wanted to reinvigorate the program and call attention,” Cortés-Evans said. “In this area, people are not really aware of foreign languages. I wanted to make Spanish shine again.”
Last fall, she said only about four people consistently showed up to the events. But this year, they’re back in full swing, and Cortés-Evans hopes to attract a larger crowd.
She said she started getting to know people in town. She connected with Ashland High School this year to invite students learning the language to attend and practice. Plus, it helps that this year, the events are open to the public — she’s inviting people of all Spanish-speaking ability to come and join in at her “table.”
Cortés-Evans brings games and activities designed to get people to engage with the language and have a chance to speak it in a comfortable environment. She said when she learned English, her second language, that was what helped her start feeling confident in speaking it.
The first session of La Mesa de Conversación en Español was Monday night, and seven people attended. The experience was immersive — everyone spoke Spanish the whole time, but Cortés-Evans was happy to help when people got stuck on a word they didn’t know.
People introduced themselves in Spanish, giving their name, age, where they were from and their profession to the group.
Cortés-Evans handed out pieces of paper with famous people in the Spanish speaking world on them. She led the group through a question-and-answer game to guess the people on each piece of paper.
Once the group guessed correctly, the person holding it would read about the famous person’s bio in Spanish. The cards had people like Frida Kahlo, Shakira and Pancho Villa on them.
As people asked questions, Cortés-Evans wrote vocabulary terms the group learned on a whiteboard and encouraged them to reuse the new words.
Riki Soto, a junior transfer student studying international politics at Ashland University, attended Monday’s session.
He moved to Ashland from Spain to play on the school’s men’s soccer team. He also works as a Spanish tutor at AU’s Writing Center, and said he came on Monday night because Cortés-Evans reached out to him.
Soto said he was glad he was there though. It was nice to be around people speaking Spanish, especially when he’s so far away from home.
“I was impressed with some peoples’ level of Spanish,” Soto said. “It was very high, which I didn’t expect around here.”
While soccer usually keeps him busy, Soto said he tore his ACL recently, and is healing from that. As long as he’s free on Monday nights, he said he plans to continue returning to Cortés-Evans’ group.
Cortés-Evans said she was happy with the turnout for the first session. Her goal was for six people to come, and turning out seven nearly doubled her number from last year.
“I think it exposes the community to a more diverse environment,” Cortés-Evans said.
She hopes to continue strengthening interest in Spanish at AU and in the Ashland community, eventually helping the school get back a Spanish major.
For those interested in attending future sessions of La Mesa de Conversación en Español, they will be open to the public on Monday nights at 5 p.m. in room 201 of Bixler Hall on Ashland University’s campus. Bixler Hall is right across from the Hawkins-Conard Student Center.
