In Whispering Waters, Dr. Viola López-Madrid-Herrera reflects on her personal life experiences and her career in educational positions, expressing her perseverance as a steady and strong river. This memoir includes conversations with the author's mother while offering insights into her own life. Her mother only attended second grade; she tells her daughter that formal education and experience are things no one can take from her as tangible items such as property can be taken away with a stroke of a pen. The author alludes to her life with her mother and related family members and having met her father for the first time at the age of thirty-seven. Her message to readers is for unwed mothers to tell her children who the father is and for fathers to seek his child and give him or her love and moral support as well as financial assistance. She covers events from elementary and high school and the business courses that prepared her for secretarial employment before attending New Mexico Highlands University, later used these skills while earning advanced degrees. López-Madrid-Herrera shares how her education and career experience evolved and saw her residing in seven states in federal, state, tribal, and local educational-related positions. The value of diversity played a key role in her journey and educational mission. Throughout the trials and tribulations, she discusses how she views family as the most important asset in her life. She reminisces about her children growing up and their attendance at the New Mexico Military Institute, preparing them to become respectful and productive adults. Whispering Waters tells a powerful story of one family's history and a childhood spent in a unique, culturally rich community.
About the Author: Viola M. López-Madrid-Herrera, a Hispanic woman, was born in El Rito, a rural community in Northern New Mexico. She earned a bachelor's degree in education from New Mexico Highlands University. Through an Educational Professional Development Award, she completed a master's degree in counseling and guidance and a Doctor of Education degree in educational administration from Oklahoma State University in three years while raising four children. López-Madrid-Herrera and her husband, Joseph D. Madrid, have four grown children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.