A former Arlington School Board member has published a new memoir about her work in education, politics and activism.
“Dreams and Shadows: An Immigrant’s Journey” recounts Emma Violand-Sánchez’s extensive career in Arlington Public Schools after traveling from Bolivia to the United States. From reliving the loss of her first husband to exploring her advocacy for immigrant students in Arlington, the 336-page book, co-written with David Bearinger, is full of both triumph and tragedy.
“Writing is healing,” Violand-Sánchez said during an April 4 luncheon interview at Busboys & Poets in Shirlington.
The new author recalled marrying her first husband, Al Giddings, in 1967 after a courtship that began when she was a student at Radford College (now University) and he was studying at Virginia Tech.
“He was handsome, tall and sandy-haired, with a winning smile and kind eyes that sparkled even in dim light,” Violand-Sánchez records in the book. “I felt something warm inside me and couldn’t stop smiling.”
It all came to an end just a year later when Giddings died while serving his country in Vietnam — according to the death certificate, from a self-inflicted wound.
“Suicide creates the worst feelings of abandonment in those left behind,” Violand-Sánchez writes. “Anguish, confusion, rejection, stigma, anger, loneliness. Desperate questions with no conceivable answers. And a pain that is so much deeper than grief.”
Putting the story, and her emotions, on paper was cathartic, Violand-Sánchez told ARLnow.
“By writing, I realized that I had uncovered a trauma I had hidden for 50 years,” she said.
After her husband’s death, Violand-Sánchez returned to her native Bolivia, where she remained for eight years. In 1976, she returned to the United States and began working for APS.
It was a challenging time, as the school system was addressing new influxes of Korean and Latino students as well as refugees arriving from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Violand-Sánchez rose through the APS administrative ranks despite some internal opposition. The book says that school leaders at the time didn’t want anyone with certain accents among their ranks.
But Violand-Sánchez ultimately would find a champion in Superintendent Robert Smith. She described him as “exceptional” and the best county school leader she worked under.
Writing in a preface to the book, Smith described “Dreams and Shadows” as “strikingly open and honest” and representing “a compelling portrayal of a full life-well-lived.”
Despite support from some in the top echelons of school leadership, doubts about Violand-Sánchez remained among others, particularly her efforts as an unabashed advocate for immigrant students.
Her colleagues continued to carry those doubts when she transitioned from staff member to the School Board.
Despite the headwinds she faced professionally, Violand-Sánchez said the local community supported all of those who deserve a strong education.
“I am forever grateful,” she said. “I’m grateful to Arlington. I’m grateful for all the work we’ve done in Arlington Public Schools.”
Less than a year after her retirement from the school system in 2007, Violand-Sánchez found herself one of six Democrats vying for two seats on the School Board.
With incumbent Libby Garvey on the ballot and expected to win one of the two seats, the question became which of the five others would nab the second in the party’s caucus to succeed the retiring Frank Wilson.
The field also included Karla Hagen, Reid Goldstein, James Lander and Terron Sims.
“I didn’t know the intricacies” of the Arlington County Democratic Committee, Violand-Sánchez acknowledges now, but she ended placing first in the caucus (Garvey was second). The two went on to win general-election victories that November.
Violand-Sánchez’s colleagues selected her as Board chair in 2012, but not without some behind-the-scenes complications that are chronicled in the book. She served another term as chair during the 2015-16 school year.
After two four-year terms, Violand-Sánchez opted to step away from elected office, but she has remained a champion for local schools and students.
“Learning is precious,” she said. “We have to recognize the role that schools play, for all students. For me, education is an anchor.”
As part of the book-kickoff effort, Violand-Sánchez on March 27 was a speaker at the 2025 “Pathways to the Future” program sponsored by Arlington Community High School.
She spoke to students, most immigrants themselves, about dealing with trauma that many have faced or will face.
“If you have a secret you’ve had all your life and you write it down, it comes out of your body,” Violand-Sánchez said. “If you bring [the shadows] to the light, you feel relief.”
In the ARLnow interview, Violand-Sánchez praised the work Bearinger, her co-author, who had served on the staff of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (now Virginia Humanities) when she was a member of its board.
Bearinger has become a friend to the Bolivian community in Virginia, and proved an able partner in the memoir, Violand-Sánchez said.
“I would write; he would edit. He was a partner, the best editor,” she said.
In a preface to the book, Bearinger described the finished result as “a journey of the heart, recounted by a woman whose powers of observation are exceptional and whose achievements are themselves an affirmation of the American Dream.”
The book also recounts Violand-Sánchez’s family ties, from the challenging relationship with her frequently absent father, a Bolivian ambassador, to the bonds with her sisters and her mother, who became an American citizen at age 89 and lived into her second century.
Her mother retained humor and high-spiritedness to the end. Realizing that her life was drawing to a close, she told family members to just recycle the guest list used for her 100th-birthday party for her funeral.
“It was my mother who made the difference in our lives,” said Violand-Sánchez. As for her father, late in his life “there was a big healing process — [in the end], we understood one another,” she said.
Violand-Sánchez has hopes of getting “Dreams and Shadows” translated into Spanish for both domestic and international consumption. While her initial speaking engagements have been in Arlington, she hopes to cast a wider net across Virginia and beyond.
“My goal is to have conversations,” she said, with perhaps an emphasis on Fairfax County, as she is a 1962 graduate of Mount Vernon High School.
Through it all, Violand-Sánchez has believed in the spirit of community that the Incas called “ayni.” Roughly translated, it stands for the spirit of community and reciprocity, of people appreciating what they have been given and helping others achieve their full potential.
Ways she has worked to put ayni into practice have included founding the Dream Project in 2011. The organization works to provide scholarships and support for college-bound students, many of whom go on to provide their own support to youth.
“That’s what we want to see: how somebody benefited and is paying it forward,” she said.
