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BY AMELIA POSSANZA

In print | Published September 2, 2010

Joan Esther Friedman asked all the members of her upper-level Spanish class to memorize Pablo Neruda’s simply-titled “Poem 20.” Many of her past students still remember some of the poem, or at least the first line —“Puedo escribir los versos más tristes está noche,” or, “Tonight I write the saddest lines.” But they remember Friedman herself for her vivacious teaching style, the joy she brought to the classroom and the faith that she had in her students.

Joan, a lecturer in Spanish, died suddenly of a cerebral aneurysm on June 14. She was 67.

Joan’s husband of 43 years, Joel Friedman, described her as a positive person who loved life and wanted to experience everything. “She had a great desire to capture every moment,” he said.

Her colleagues remember her as a woman whose migrations mirrored those of the characters she read about. She was born in Shanghai in 1943 to a Russian father and a German mother, both of whom had fled anti-Semitism.

At age six, the family moved to Venezuela. After growing up there, she came to the U.S. to study Italian and Latin American literature at Hunter College in New York. She earned her B.A. there in 1965 and went on to receive an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1967, where she met her husband, Joel Friedman. She pursued further graduate study in Comparative Literature at CUNY’s graduate center. She went on to hold several teaching posts across the Northeast before settling at Swarthmore in 1987.

At the college, she taught all levels of Spanish language courses and delved into studying the Jewish experience in Latin America. It was a little-researched area, but Joan made use of as many opportunities as she could to pursue the field. She attended several conferences, translated a novel that chronicled the migratory experience of one Jewish family, and became the publisher of the biannual newsletter of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association.

Associate Professor of Spanish Aurora Camacho de Schmidt related this interest to Joan’s own experience. “She had felt the horror of the loss of many families. She remained connected to many people who had lost relatives and who had emigrated to either Latin America or the United States,” she said.

Kendal Rinko ’09, a Latin American Studies major, tried to fit Joan’s classes into her schedule wherever she could.

“She just always seemed to bring the world into the room with her,” she said. “I really respected her because she was charismatic. She made me love going to class everyday.”

Joan also expressed her devotion to students outside the classroom. As the faculty advisor to HOLA, or the Hispanic Organization for Latin American Awareness, a precursor to ENLACE, she helped form a Latino community on campus.

Rinko also said that she sought out Joan for advice on what major to choose, when to study abroad and what to do after college. She valued the way Joan gave her honest answers, even if they were also tough.

Rinko now teaches high school Spanish in Tennessee through “Teach for America” and tries to emulate Joan’s enthusiasm, energy and deep concern for her students.

“I think about her everyday when I walk into my classroom because I want to be that teacher for my students,” she said.

Mark Chin ’12 remembers her for the way she made students strive to meet her high standards. “She knew as students we could reach a certain level of proficiency and speak Spanish. It made me exceed what I wanted to do,” he said.

Camacho de Schmidt said that Joan was also deeply invested in her students, often remembering specific details about each one of them and worrying about them long after they left her classroom. “She very often said it’s just like being a mother,” Camacho de Schmidt said.

As a migrant, Joan had an ear for languages and showed a great respect toward all of them. Camacho de Schmidt remembers that Joan always finished a sentence in the same language that she began it in, never mixing the German, French, Italian, English and Spanish that swirled in her life.

Joel also recalled that her knack for learning languages often came in handy on their many travels. “We went to Paris, and we went to the market. We went three or four days just listening, not talking to anyone. Then the next day she was talking to all the little old ladies in French,” Friedman said, adding that it was a skill she inherited from her mother.

“She loved the opera, she loved music, she loved art,” he said, linking her study of Italian to her interest in opera.

Joan is also survived by her two children, Ruth and Daniel. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Swarthmore Public Library. Members of the Swarthmore community can share their memories of Joan with the family at http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/students/joan_friedman/.

The Spanish Department is planning a memorial concert set to take place on Oct. 1. There is also a Joan Friedman Memorial Fund that will be used to purchase furnishings for the courtyard in front of Kohlberg, where she taught. Mary Baird ’79, a landscape architect, will design the space to commemorate Joan’s love of conversation and gardens.

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