Born in Ciudad Mier in 1931 to Esther Molina Peña and Antonio Peña, Albar Peña was raised in Falfurrias, Texas where he graduated from Falfurrias High School in 1950. After high school, Peña served four years in the United States Air Force before enrolling at the University of Texas at Austin on the G.I. Bill. Peña graduated from UT Austin in 1957 with a B.A. in French and Spanish, and shortly thereafter moved to Brownsville, Texas where he became a teacher of French and Spanish at Brownsville ISD and Texas Southmost College. While teaching in Brownsville, Peña also completed his M.A. in Spanish and Educational Administration from Texas A & M-Kingsville (née Texas A & I University). In 1964, he returned to the University of Texas at Austin to work on his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in Bilingual Education and English as a Second Language.
While working on his dissertation at UT Austin, Peña was also the Director of the National Defense Education Act Summer Institute for Teachers of Spanish-Speaking Disadvantaged Children Language Laboratory, a lecturer in ESL and Spanish at UT Austin, and a Spanish consultant to UT Austin’s Language Research Program in the San Antonio Independent School. Following the passage of the Federal Bilingual Education Act, Peña was named the first director of the Department of Education’s Bilingual Education Program, a post he would hold until 1973. As director of the bilingual program, he coordinated over 200 bilingual education projects in 24 languages at both primary and secondary levels. In 1973, Peña returned to San Antonio and became the first director of the newly created Division of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Peña continued as a professor in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at UTSA until his death in 1993. During his professional career in the field of bilingual education, he held many prestigious positions. He was the first president of the National Association for Bilingual Education, twice served as the president of the Texas Association for Bilingual Education, he was selected as U.S. representative at the International Colloquium in Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Paris, France, and he was also selected as chairman of the National Advisory Panel to the National Clearinghouse on Bilingual Education.
From the guide to the Albar Peña Papers UA 99. 0015., 1952-1997, (University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections)
