Buena Vista Street Building, UTSA Downtown Campus
UTSA hosts award-winning writer of Latino children's books
(Sept. 19, 2002)--Author Francisco Jimenez, winner of the 2001 Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, will speak at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 20 at the University of Texas at San Antonio Downtown Campus, Buena Vista Street Building Theater. The presentation is free and open to the public.
Jimenez received the award, presented by Southwest Texas State University, for “Breaking Through,” which chronicles the author’s childhood as part of a migrant farm- working family in California. Published by Houghton Mifflin (August 2001), the work was selected as a Booklist Editors’ Choice, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, a Smithsonian’s Notable Book for Children and Young Adults and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen-Age. It also received the Pura Bupre Authors Honor Book Award and the 2002 Americas Award. A Spanish translation is due out soon under the title, “Senderos fronterizos.”
“Breaking Through” is a follow-up to “The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child,” Jimenez’ much-lauded autobiographical short-story anthology that has been translated into Spanish, Chinese and Japanese in the four years since its publication. UTSA is hosting the event to promote awareness of Latino children’s literature, which is scarce and needs to be made more visible to schools, libraries and other sites, according to College of Education and Human Development Dean Blandina Cardenas.
The Rivera literary prize, established in 1995, also honors Tomas Rivera, the renowned educator and prolific creative writer who was Southwest’s first Mexican American distinguished alumnus. The Crystal City, Texas, native went on to become Chancellor of the University of California-Riverside. He traveled extensively during his career, promoting Mexican American literature throughout the United States, Mexico and Europe.
Respectively referred to by colleagues as the “Dean of Mexican American Literature,” Rivera wrote in both English and Spanish. While his works often depict the harsh realities of life for migrant farm-workers, Rivera also emphasizes the enduring resilience of the human spirit.
UTSA honors Rivera’s contributions and his belief in the potential for
a better life through education through the Tomas Rivera Center for Student
Success, an academic support resource geared to first-generation college students.
For more information, visit the Tomas
Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award Web site.
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© The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2002