Background
Donald Fogelquist was born on August 23, 1906, in Sioux City, Iowa, United States. He was the son of Frederick C. and Anna (Lundgren) Fogelquist.
Donald Fogelquist was born on August 23, 1906, in Sioux City, Iowa, United States. He was the son of Frederick C. and Anna (Lundgren) Fogelquist.
Donald received both his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Washington State University. He continued his graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin under some of the most distinguished Hispanists in the United States, and he was awarded the Ph.D. degree by that institution.
During the years from 1939 to 1942, Donald Fogelquist taught at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and at the University of Miami, Coral Gables. From 1942 to 1945 he was a professor at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. During the period from 1946 to 1947 he was director of the Paraguayan-American Cultural Center in Asunción, Paraguay. After this he joined the faculty at Washington State University and finally in 1948 he came to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he remained until his retirement in 1974.
In 1959, Donald was selected by the Department of State to go on a goodwill tour of Latin America and deliver a series of lectures in that area. In Bogotá, Colombia, he was faced with a hostile audience of leftist students who heckled him and tried to shout him down. He waited until the noise had subsided, and then in his own calm and inimitable way he explained that he was not a government or business representative but a professor who had dedicated his entire life to making Latin America better understood in the United States. He would be glad to meet with smaller groups of the students later to discuss their grievances and to convey their complaints to the people in Washington upon his return. His sincerity and fluent Spanish soon won them over, and the audience finally gave him a rousing ovation. The remainder of the tour was a resounding success.
From 1962 to 1963, Donald was on a Fulbright research fellowship in Spain. He gathered material for his book, Españoles de América y americanos de España, later published in Madrid. He spent some time with members of the family of the Nobel laureate Spanish poet, Juan Ramón Jiénez, whom he had come to know intimately while they were both teaching in Coral Gables, Florida. After his retirement from UCLA, Donald published a masterful book on Juan Ramón, in which he translated into beautiful English many of that writer's finest poems.
Fogelquist served for several years as chairman of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UCLA. Under his chairmanship the Department pursued a policy of vigorous recruitment that greatly strengthened its staff and offerings in all the areas of Hispanic and Portuguese languages and literatures. The Department was recognized as offering more courses in Latin American literature than any other in the United States, and students came from far and wide to study in this field.
Donald was a member of American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.
Donald Fogelquist married Helen Rasmussen on July 1, 1939. They had three children: Alan Frederick, Mark Stephen, and James Donald.