The Diplomat
The Board of Directors of the Instituto Cervantes has approved the opening of new extensions in El Paso (United States) and Ramallah (Palestine) with the aim of promoting the learning of Spanish in New Mexico, Texas and California, on the one hand, and the West Bank, on the other.
As approved by the Board of Directors this past Wednesday, the El Paso extension will be located at Southwest University and will depend on the Cervantes center in Albuquerque (New Mexico) and the Ramallah extension will be attached to the center located in Amman, capital of Jordan.
“El Paso is a particularly significant place because it is where construction began on the wall separating the United States and Mexico”, the Cervantes Institute said in a press release. Apart from that, “It is the U.S. city with the highest percentage of Hispanics, 83%, according to the 2019 census”. “The Instituto Cervantes considers it essential to promote Spanish and its culture in the United States, and especially in New Mexico, Texas and California, so that it is considered a language of culture and science, and that immigrants of Hispanic origin settled there feel proud of their roots”, it continued.
The new extension will focus on the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language (ELE), although it will also include special courses related to Hispanic cultural heritage, the improvement of reading and writing in Spanish and knowledge of the culture in our language. As for future cultural activities, the honorary consul in El Paso and the consul general in Houston, in addition to the Embassy, are in talks with the mayor and representatives of other state agencies to plan actions related to art, science and culture in Spanish. The assignment of the space at Southwest University is completely free of charge.
In addition, the objective of the new Ramallah extension, in collaboration with the Spanish Consulate in Jerusalem, is to offer Spanish courses in that West Bank city, located 15 kilometers from Jerusalem. The project would be carried out in two phases: a pilot phase until September 2021 and a second phase after that date. In the first phase, the classes will be held in a classroom rented from the Spanish Visa Center in Ramallah, while in the next phase, they are expected to be moved in September to the premises of the Franco-German Center, once the relevant agreement has been signed.
