It was with great sadness that we learned about the passing of our colleague, Dr. Lynne Diaz-Rico. For many years, Lynne was an active member of the Intercultural Communication Interest Section of TESOL. We remember her with a deep respect and memory of a passionate interculturalist, dedicated researcher and teacher educator, and a wonderful and caring person, colleague and friend.

Lynne served as a professor of education at California State University, San Bernardino. In her long and successful career she worked with public and private teacher education institutions and agencies around the world to prepare teachers for diverse classrooms and English language pedagogy. She authored several books that have been widely used to educate English language development teachers. Lynne frequently presented at TESOL sessions sponsored by ICIS and often supported us as a mentor and cheering friend. She will be dearly missed. And we will miss you, our colleague and friend Lynne Diaz-Rico.

Please read an obituary here.

Roxanna Senyshyn, Pennsylvania State University, Abington College, Abington, PA

I would like to pay a brief and personal homage to Dr. Lynne Diaz-Rico today not by citing her numerous academic achievements and successes but by recalling some memories which I will always carry with me.

I first met Lynne in person during the TESOL International convention in Toronto in 2015 and had the fortune to speak to her during our ICIS meetings and social occasions. While discussing different professional and broader topics, I was immediately struck by the openness of her views, by the ease and lightness with which she moved from local to global, from present to past, from the most recent theories to e.g. American Indian creeds and amazing intuitions. And everything with an admirable calm, but certainly not without passion or commitment. With Lynne, culture simply had wings, moving time and spacewise, intertwining depth and clarity, theoretical rigour and creative applications.

I also remember vividly the ease with which the audience participated in her workshops and talks. How skillfully Lynne invited and led her participants to share their views and professional experiences, thus co-creating a common story, which was in itself such a rewarding experience.

On many other occasions and during the TESOL conventions, I sincerely admired her generosity and support of her younger colleagues, to whom she offered illuminating insights and precious advice. I noticed how deeply she understood the people around her – a true interculturalist. Personally, I am also very grateful for her genuine support and words of praise and truly honoured to have met her.

Dear Lynne, stay in peace!

Barbara Lapornik, Liceo Scientifico Statale - Državni znanstveni licej “France Prešeren”, Trieste, Italy

I give you this one thought to keep.

I am with you still, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken, in the morning's hush

I am the swift, uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight,

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not think of me as gone,

I am with you still in each new dawn.

Native American poem

I found this poem to be gratifying in some way as it validated my own feelings or thought process while mourning the loss of our colleague, Lynne Diaz-Rico. I was overcome with emotion when I learned the news but somehow, in the months that have followed, I still have had this ever-present sense that she wasn’t gone--not definitively. Having known Lynne through TESOL and ICIS for a number of years and always having the great joy of interacting with her in both personal and professional capacities in our interactions together through annual Convention and beyond, I know that her spirit lives--all around me. I know that she would be honored to be shining among the stars and circling with the birds, and bringing warmth and a sense of energy and renewal with the rays of the sun. Lynne was a very powerful, spiritual force and her love for native peoples and customs was palpable and infectious. Her physical presence and friendship will be greatly missed but her enormous spirit will endure as a part of me and a part of our TESOL and ICIS community.

Amy Alice Chastain, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA

I first met Lynne at the TESOL Convention 2015 held in Toronto. I was a graduate student, eagerly looking for a community of peers. Lynne became a mentor and a friend, someone who was always ready to help, support, and celebrate our ICIS community.

I remember Lynne as a global citizen, a rigorous researcher, and a sharp thinker. Our conversations would start with methods of teaching, go into politics, and end with discussing modern art.

Through Lynne, I have grown to be more attentive to the state of our profession, our position in the larger society, and our responsibility towards the people who surround us. Always a teacher, Lynne would call me “kiddo” in our conversations, and I never minded her doing so.

Lynne might be gone, but her spirit will remain with us forever.

Natalia Balaysnikova, York University, Toronto, Canada

I was fortunate enough to present with Lynne on several occasions at TESOL International Conventions. I was always in awe of her ability to connect with audiences so authentically and share her incredible depth of knowledge and expertise so easily.

One of my favorite memories of Lynne was when I played didgeridoo during one of our ICIS meetings at the 2016 TESOL International Convention. Lynne led the group in a song by a Native American Cahuilla/Serrano community singing to the dragonfly. Lynne was inspired by the dragonfly that was on my didgeridoo, as well as a dream her husband had the night before about hearing the sound of another Australian Aboriginal instrument, the bullroarer, that enabled "the opening of space between two worlds." Certainly a prophetic and powerful vision that we were able to realize. It's also important to recognize that the language we were singing in has only one native speaker living. Lynne was always a champion for endangered cultures and languages.

Here is a video excerpt that someone recorded and I posted of the moment.

Here is more about the Dragonfly song.

Rest in peace and power, Lynne. Thank you for all that you did for the world in your time here on earth.

Ramin Yazdanpanah, Full Circle Language Learning, Tallahassee, FL, USA