Background
Arnulfo Duenes Trejo was born in Villa Vicente Guerrero, Durango, Mexico on August 15, 1922. He was the son of Nicolas Floriano Trejo and Petra Duenes Trejo. His family immigrated to the United States when he was three.
Arnulfo Trejo, at the age of 26
Photo of Arnulfo Duenes Trejo
Photo of Arnulfo Duenes Trejo
Photo of Arnulfo Duenes Trejo
Photo of Arnulfo Duenes Trejo
Arnulfo Duenes Trejo was born in Villa Vicente Guerrero, Durango, Mexico on August 15, 1922. He was the son of Nicolas Floriano Trejo and Petra Duenes Trejo. His family immigrated to the United States when he was three.
Arnulfo attended Drachman Elementary, Safford Jr. High, and Tucson High School. Before going to college he served in the United States Army infantry in the South Pacific theater during World War II, receiving the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and a Philippine Liberation Ribbon.
Returning to the United States, he earned a long list of academic degrees, including a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Arizona in 1949, a Master of Arts in Spanish language and literature from the University of the Americas (present-day Universidad de las Américas) in 1951, a Master of Arts in library science from Kent State University in 1953, and a doctorate from the National University of Mexico in 1959.
Arnulfo Duenes Trejo embarked on a long career as an academic librarian in 1954, first working as an assistant librarian at the National University of Mexico, then as a reference librarian at the University of California at Los Angeles during the 1950s.
From 1959 to 1963 he was an assistant librarian at California State University in Long Beach. Trejo joined the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles in the late 1960s as a professor of library science before moving to Tucson, where he was a professor of English and library science at the University of Arizona from 1970 to 1975 before focusing on library science until 1984.
Trejo founded REFORMA, the National Association of Spanish Speaking Librarians in the United States in 1971, and served as its president from 1971-1974. The organization is still in operation, and its purpose is to, among other things, provide a means for bilingual librarians to network with each other, to promote the collection of Spanish-language materials in libraries, to advocate for the recruitment of Latinos to librarianship, and to provide programming that benefits the Latino community. The organization now has chapters in every corner of the US as well as in Puerto Rico and is now called, REFORMA: The National Association for the Promotion of Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking.
In 1975, Trejo organized and administered the Graduate Library Institute for Spanish Speaking Americans (GLISA) a federally funded project that operated for four years under his direction. 56 individuals earned their master's degrees in library science through this program. Many of these graduates went on to become directors of major library systems. Today's Spectrum Scholar's program, an American Library Association sponsored project, and the University of Arizona's Knowledge River program were both modeled after GLISA.
In 1980, Trejo opened Hispanic Book Distributors, a book vending company specializing in books from the Spanish Speaking world, and dedicated to increasing the availability of Spanish language materials in United States libraries. Trejo particularly enjoyed making regular buying trips to Mexico, Spain, and Argentina, and his materials were sold to public, school, and academic libraries across the country.
Trejo retired from the University of Arizona Graduate Library School in 1984, a full professor, with a long list of accomplishments and publications.
In 1992, after the death of his second wife Annette M. Foster, Trejo founded the Trejo-Foster Foundation for Library Education, where he was able to continue to influence the library profession by providing educational institutes focused on library services to Latinos and the Spanish speaking.
Trejo wrote or edited several books to aid Hispanic librarians, among them "Bibliografia Chicana: A Guide to Information Services" (1975), and was an editor and contributor to "The Chicanos: As We See Ourselves" (1979). For many years he also edited and published the Hispanic Books Bulletin.
Arnulfo was married three times. Nothing is known about his first wife. Trejo's second wife was Annette M. Foster Trejo. Then he remarried Ninfa Trejo. He had three children: Rachel, Rebecca, and Ruth.