“I will take a stand and a firm one whenever necessary, for I am with you now and always.” ~Nina Otero-Warren
A leader in the New Mexico suffrage movement, the first female superintendent of Santa Fe Public Schools, and the first Hispanic American featured on a U.S. coin, Adelina “Nina” Otero-Warren was a trailblazer in everything she did. She stood firm in her beliefs and fought hard to improve the lives of Hispanic Americans. She spent her entire career fighting to eliminate language barriers in education, enhance curriculum through multicultural education, and fighting for women's rights.
Otero-Warren's father died when she was very young, so she was primarily raised by her strong female role models, her mother, aunts, and governess. Her mother was the director of the Santa Fe Board of Education and an educational and social activist. Otero-Warren followed in her footsteps, showing an affinity for leadership at a young age and firmly believing that women belonged in community leadership roles.
She was an outspoken supporter of women's rights and joined Alice Paul's Congressional Union (CU) suffrage work. While fighting to ratify the 19th Amendment, Paul realized they needed more support from the Hispanic population to ensure New Mexico's vote. She asked Otero-Warren to take the position of leader of the New Mexico CU because she knew she could rally her community. Otero-Warren accepted. She insisted all the New Mexico CU's messaging be bilingual so it was accessible to all women. She didn't want a language barrier to keep women from standing up for their rights. Between this strategy and her personal connections to this community, she rallied support from both English and Spanish speakers. Thanks to her efforts, New Mexico eventually helped ratify the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote.
Otero-Warren knew she could be doing more, so she decided to run for Congress, becoming the first Latina ever to run. Her campaign focused on preserving Hispanic heritage and culture and improving her community's education, healthcare, and welfare services. Like her suffrage work, she spoke English and Spanish at all her campaign events. She ultimately lost the election but became the first female superintendent of New Mexico Public Schools instead. She was committed to improving the educational experience for Hispanic and Native American children and those from rural areas. She repaired dangerously time-worn school buildings, raised teacher salaries, created more high school and adult education programs, and made curriculum changes to emphasize bilingual and multicultural education. After her tenure as superintendent, she continued to fight to integrate local culture into the classroom, ensuring every student felt represented.
After being superintendent, she was appointed the New Mexico state director for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Soon after taking on the role, she was appointed director of literacy education for CCC. She used her platform to continue to fight for bilingual education and English as a second language classes. She said that increased literacy led to better citizens and believed that language barriers should never negatively affect a child's education.
When this quarter was first designed, it featured her full name, Adelina Otero-Warren. However, during the June 16, 2021, Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) meeting, her family said they would prefer her nickname, Nina, to be used instead. They said they never called her Adelina, and they don't know anyone who did. Even her biography was titled Nina Otero-Warren of Santa Fe; it was how she was known, and they felt that should be reflected on this coin.
During the CCAC meeting, there was some discussion of whether or not they should keep the flowers in the design. Some committee members thought they were just insignificant design fillers added to soften the design for this women's quarter. Otero-Warren's family disagreed. They felt that these yucca flowers, the state flower of New Mexico, represented her dedication to the people of New Mexico. They actually wanted the flowers to be larger and more defined.
Otero-Warren's image is pictured looking ready to take on business next to the words "voto para la mujer." This translates to "vote for women" in Spanish. The boldly bilingual design of this coin is unique and continues to break the language barriers she spent her whole career fighting.