Norberto T. Medina - Director

Norberto Medina was born in Seattle, during the time his parents, natives of Mexico City, were completing graduate studies at the University of Washington. When they returned to Mexico, it was with two new degrees (MS in Electrical Engineering, his; MS in Biology, hers), one toddler, and a baby; Norberto and his little sister were the first two of six children in the family. Having learned to walk along the lush and green corridors on the UW campus, Norberto grew up in Mexico City as any other Mexican. From time to time, he would stumble on old baby pictures with the space needle in the background, or unique items like an REI tent would point to that distant past in the Pacific Northwest.

In his late twenties, and after working for a few years as a computer engineer in Mexico City, Norberto started to think about returning to the United States.  A nearly forgotten dream of learning classical guitar, helped him make the decision: he moved to Portland to study under Alfredo Muro, the renowned Peruvian guitarist and composer who was living there at the time. Not long after, almost coincidentally, Norberto started teaching for the first time, having met English speakers who wanted to learn his native language.

Norberto was deeply moved by the sincere interest and motivation that his students showed for the language and culture of Mexico and Latin America. Teaching Spanish could have a tremendous impact on other people’s lives and on their communities, he soon realized. It was all about building connections, creating understanding between peoples, which in the end, could help build a more just world. In 2009, Norberto and his wife Elyse Tishkoff Medina founded Tierra Educational Center.

As Tierra’s director, Norberto believes that we are naturally designed to communicate through language, and that anyone can learn a second language. Furthermore, he enjoys sharing his enthusiasm and passion for Mexican culture. Teaching Spanish, he feels privileged to witness the progress and transformation that happen as students experience the joy of expressing their thoughts in a completely new way; he loves that moment when a wider perspective of the world begins to open for them.

Norberto always intended Tierra Educational Center to be a place that fosters excitement along the path that begins with learning the Spanish alphabet and pronunciation and may fork into the nuances of advanced Spanish grammar and linguistics, or reading and discussing literary works—be they novels, short stories, poetry or songs—of great Latin American and Spanish artists. All of this provides an authentic cultural journey that he has happily taken with hundreds of students over the last fifteen years, as Tierra has grown to be one of Portland’s important and treasured learning centers.

When Norberto is not working at Tierra, he can be found on hiking and camping adventures with his family, working in his garden, biking around town, driving his kids to numerous music lessons, or practicing the classical guitar, jarana or requinto jarocho.