Culture and Community: Meet Bilingual IT Specialist Lyanne Garcia-Boswell

(SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — February 19, 2025) An ever-growing demand for bilingual support systems at Empire State University has led to the recruitment of several qualified staff members who serve their respective departments. Among them is Lyanne Garcia-Boswell, who joined Empire State University in August of last year as a bilingual Information Technology Services (ITS) specialist. Every day, the ITS department tends to a rising level of calls from Spanish-speaking students seeking technological assistance.  To streamline ITS assistance offered to students at Empire State University, Garcia-Boswell is available to chat through any technology issues that students may encounter, in English or Spanish.

Though parts of their childhood took root in Florida and Puerto Rico, García-Boswell feels they did most of their growing up in Hudson Valley, loosely an hour north of New York City. The area was mostly inhabited by immigrant families, they recall. Through attending school alongside kids from Central American and Eastern-European families relocated to New York state, García-Boswell felt a sense of belonging—their own Puerto Rican ties and community-oriented values were, in a way, mirrored by their surroundings.

Like many, Garcia-Boswell recalls learning Spanish through speaking it at home, especially because their mother spoke little English at the time they moved to New York state. Beneath the umbrella of the Spanish language, there are countless variations from country to country, and often, several dialects even within one nation. This is something Garcia-Boswell became aware of early in life through visiting family in Puerto Rico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, which shaped their understanding of the wealth of diversity that exists in the Hispanic and Latino identities. These same family visits allowed them to develop their knowledge and use of Spanish concurrently with English-speaking skills.

“Mi identidad Latina, my Latino identity is so special to me, and I do think it’s important, especially here at Empire State University with the BBA, that people see that there are different kinds of, well, everybody,” shares Garcia-Boswell. They underscore a fact that is essential to understanding the bilingual experience, and many others: intersectionality and varied life events yield individuality and uniqueness under every existing identity label.

Garcia-Boswell reflects on a previous job where, much like with Empire State University’s bilingual team, Spanish speakers from all over the world were employed for the education, advocacy, and care of youth who had recently crossed the Southern border of the United States. “It was so amazing to see just how different but also how similar every country’s culture was… dance parties would happen often, heated debates about what different foods were called in each country—plantains were a huge topic of discussion. Most of all, it was really interesting to learn how immigration impacted each of them,” comments Garcia-Boswell.

Throughout the planning process for Empire State University’s new Spanish language Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Garcia-Boswell has enjoyed seeing the growing excitement towards embracing Spanish speakers’ needs and looks forward to the learning opportunities it will provide, not only for future BBA students, but also for university staff and faculty. “I think some direct exposure to bilingualism can show people that it’s everywhere—not just at SUNY Empire. Many people around us speak many different languages, it’s not just at work or school,” Garcia-Boswell pointed out.

As Empire State University prepares to welcome its first class of Spanish BBA students, Garcia-Boswell recognizes the importance of equitability among students, bilingual or not, in creating a truly inclusive academic environment. In terms of the path ahead, they are curious to see if the Spanish BBA’s outcomes will open doors for other bilingual course offerings at the university: “Bilingual people also deserve to study the arts in their own language,” said Garcia-Boswell. “It’s a huge undertaking, but it would be great to see other programs being developed in a couple of years.”