Background
Mrs. Cantu was born on January 3, 1947, in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. She is a daughter of Florentino and Virginia (Ramon) Cantu. Her family immigrated to the United States in 1948 and became its citizens in 1968.
(Canícula--the dog days--a particularly intense part of th...)
Canícula--the dog days--a particularly intense part of the summer when most cotton is harvested in South Texas. In Norma Cantú's fictionalized memoir of Laredo in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s, it also represents a time between childhood and an as yet unknown adulthood. Actual snapshots and the author's re-created memories allow readers to experience the pivotal events of this world--births, deaths, injuries, fiestas, rites of passage. This popular book won the 1995 Premio Aztlán. "A personalized ethnography that feels as familiar as my own family album, and as touching."--Ana Castillo "Intimate as a poem, and as large as the Texas sky, these stories are at once diminutive and grand."--Sandra Cisneros
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826318282/?tag=2022091-20
(Canícula--the dog days--a particularly intense part of th...)
Canícula--the dog days--a particularly intense part of the summer when most cotton is harvested in South Texas. In Norma Cantú's fictionalized memoir of Laredo in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s, it also represents a time between childhood and an as yet unknown adulthood. Actual snapshots and the author's re-created memories allow readers to experience the pivotal events of this world--births, deaths, injuries, fiestas, rites of passage. This popular book won the 1995 Premio Aztlán. "A personalized ethnography that feels as familiar as my own family album, and as touching."--Ana Castillo "Intimate as a poem, and as large as the Texas sky, these stories are at once diminutive and grand."--Sandra Cisneros
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826315925/?tag=2022091-20
(Mexican and Mexican American women have written about Tex...)
Mexican and Mexican American women have written about Texas and their lives in the state since colonial times. Edited by fellow Tejanas Inés Hernández-Ávila and Norma Elia Cantú, Entre Guadalupe y Malinche gathers, for the first time, a representative body of work about the lives and experiences of women who identify as Tejanas in both the literary and visual arts. The writings of more than fifty authors and the artwork of eight artists manifest the nuanced complexity of what it means to be Tejana and how this identity offers alternative perspectives to contemporary notions of Chicana identity, community, and culture. Considering Texas-Mexican women and their identity formations, subjectivities, and location on the longest border between Mexico and any of the southwestern states acknowledges the profound influence that land and history have on a people and a community, and how Tejana creative traditions have been shaped by historical, geographical, cultural, linguistic, social, and political forces. This representation of Tejana arts and letters brings together the work of rising stars along with well-known figures such as writers Gloria Anzaldúa, Emma Pérez, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Carmen Tafolla, and Pat Mora, and artists such as Carmen Lomas Garza, Kathy Vargas, Santa Barraza, and more. The collection attests to the rooted presence of the original indigenous peoples of the land now known as Tejas, as well as a strong Chicana/Mexicana feminism that has its precursors in Tejana history itself.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477308369/?tag=2022091-20
(This landmark collection of essays from the 1984 National...)
This landmark collection of essays from the 1984 National Association for Chicana Studies conference entitled Voces de la Mujer offers a cross-section of the interdisciplinary scholarship on Chicanas in U.S. society. Chicanas roles in politics, history, bilingualism, the work force, literature, and higher education are examined in depth in the twenty essays. Introducing the third printing of this influential book in a new foreword by Teresa Córdova, which updates readers on the gains and struggles of Chicanas in the association since these essays were originally published. Córdova puts the conference that gave root to these essays in historical perspective as an important turning point for Chicana academics on the road to establishing their rightful place on university campuses.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082631404X/?tag=2022091-20
(During the advent of Chicano teatro, dozens of groups spr...)
During the advent of Chicano teatro, dozens of groups sprang up across the country in Chicano/a communities. Since then, teatristas have been leading voices in the creation and production of plays touching minds and hearts that galvanize audiences to action. Barrio Dreams is the first book to collect the work of one of Arizona’s foremost teatristas, playwright Silviana Wood. During her decades-long involvement in theater, Wood forged a reputation as a playwright, actor, director, and activist. Her works form a testimonio of Chicana life, steeped in art, politics, and the borderlands. Wood’s plays challenge, question, and incite women to consider their lot in life. She ruptures stereotypes and raises awareness of social issues via humor and with an emphasis on the use of the physical body on stage. The play Una vez, en un barrio de sueños . . . offers a glimpse into familiar terrain—the barrio and its dwellers—in three actos. In Amor de hija, a fraught mother-daughter relationship in contemporary working-class Arizona is dealt an additional blow as the family faces Alzheimer’s disease. In the tragedy A Drunkard’s Tale of Melted Wings and Memories, and in the trilingual (Spanish, English, and Yaqui) tragicomedy Yo, Casimiro Flores, characters love, live, die, travel through time and space, and visit the afterlife. And in Anhelos por Oaxaca, a grandfather travels back in time through flashbacks, as he and his grandson travel through homelands from Arizona to Oaxaca. Part of Wood’s genius is the way she portrays life in what Gloria Anzaldúa called “el mundo zurdo,” that space inhabited by the people of color, the poor, the female, and the outsiders. It is a place for the atravesados, the odd, the different, those who do not fit the mainstream. The people who inhabit Wood’s plays are common folk—janitors, mothers, grandmothers, and teenagers—hardworking people who, in one way or another, have made their way in life and who embody life in the barrio. During the advent of Chicano teatro, dozens of groups sprang up across the country in Chicano/a communities. Since then, teatristas have been leading voices in the creation and production of plays touching minds and hearts that galvanize audiences to action. Barrio Dreams is the first book to collect the work of one of Arizona’s foremost teatristas, playwright Silviana Wood. During her decades-long involvement in theater, Wood forged a reputation as a playwright, actor, director, and activist. Her works form a testimonio of Chicana life, steeped in art, politics, and the borderlands. Wood’s plays challenge, question, and incite women to consider their lot in life. She ruptures stereotypes and raises awareness of social issues via humor and with an emphasis on the use of the physical body on stage. The play Una vez, en un barrio de sueños . . . offers a glimpse into familiar terrain—the barrio and its dwellers—in three actos. In Amor de hija, a fraught mother-daughter relationship in contemporary working-class Arizona is dealt an additional blow as the family faces Alzheimer’s disease. In the tragedy A Drunkard’s Tale of Melted Wings and Memories, and in the trilingual (Spanish, English, and Yaqui) tragicomedy Yo, Casimiro Flores, characters love, live, die, travel through time and space, and visit the afterlife. And in Anhelos por Oaxaca, a grandfather travels back in time through flashbacks, as he and his grandson travel through homelands from Arizona to Oaxaca. Part of Wood’s genius is the way she portrays life in what Gloria Anzaldúa called “el mundo zurdo,” that space inhabited by the people of color, the poor, the female, and the outsiders. It is a place for the atravesados, the odd, the different, those who do not fit the mainstream. The people who inhabit Wood’s plays are common folk—janitors, mothers, grandmothers, and teenagers—hardworking people who, in one way or another, have made their way in life and who embody life in the barrio.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0816532478/?tag=2022091-20
(Ideal for intermediate- to advanced-level Spanish languag...)
Ideal for intermediate- to advanced-level Spanish language or literature courses, Canicula is the Spanish version of the author's award-winning collection of short stories by the same name, which chronicles the life experiences of a Mexican family living on the Texas-Mexico border while sensitively portraying the experiences of thousands of U.S. Latinos whose voices are seldom heard. Unlike many intermediate-level readers, which anthologize standard works, this volume presents outstanding, authentic literature and themes that are highly relevant to heritage speakers in this country.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618011803/?tag=2022091-20
(Latinos comprise the fastest growing ethnic group in the ...)
Latinos comprise the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, and this interdisciplinary anthology gathers the scholarship of both early career and senior Latina/o scholars whose work explores the varied and unique latinidades, or Latino cultural identities, of this group.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0230621783/?tag=2022091-20
Mrs. Cantu was born on January 3, 1947, in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. She is a daughter of Florentino and Virginia (Ramon) Cantu. Her family immigrated to the United States in 1948 and became its citizens in 1968.
In 1973 Norma received Bachelor of Science in Education cum laude from Texas Agricultural and Industrial University and in 1975 Master of Science from the same university. Mrs. Cantu obtained Doctor of Philosophy from University Nebraska in 1982.
Norma Cantu served as an instructor at University Nebraska, Lincoln, during 1975-1978. From 1980 to 1987 she was an assistant professor at Laredo State University. During the period of 1987-1993 Mrs. Cantu hels the post of an associate professor at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University. From 1987 till 1991 she acted as a chairperson division arts & science. During 1991-1992 she was an interim dean school education and arts & science Washington. And Mrs. Cantu has worked as a professor of English since 1995. In 1993-1995 she was a senior arts specialist Folk arts program National Education Association, Washington.
Mrs. Cantu became a member council women higher education Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, 1991, institutional representative, 1992, faculty representative formula funding committee during 1992-1993. Then Norma Cantu worked at the Translator development center Hispanic Affairs in Lincoln, Nebraska.
From 1987 to 1988 Norma Cantu served at the Secretary faculty senate Laredo State University/Texas Agricultural and Mechanical International University.
Mrs. Cantu has read poetry, given lectures, and presented papers in locations throughout the United States, Mexico, and Paris, France. Has served as an editor or consultant for the University of New Mexico Press, Texas A & M University Press, and Chicana/Latina Studies Journal.She produced and moderated “Fiesta Latina,” a weekly public service radio program on KRNU. She was known to be a director of Teatro Chicano/a at the University of Nebraska.
Norma has been on the faculty of the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In 2016, she was named Murchison Professor in the Humanities at Trinity University.
(Ideal for intermediate- to advanced-level Spanish languag...)
(Latinos comprise the fastest growing ethnic group in the ...)
(This landmark collection of essays from the 1984 National...)
(Canícula--the dog days--a particularly intense part of th...)
(Canícula--the dog days--a particularly intense part of th...)
(Mexican and Mexican American women have written about Tex...)
(During the advent of Chicano teatro, dozens of groups spr...)
Quotations:
Mrs. Cantu told CA: "As a daughter of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, I am fluent in two languages and multiple cultures; this gives me an edge as a writer. I write in Spanish, in English, and in the language of the border depending on whether I am writing poetry, criticism, or fiction."
"Writing is an extension of my work as a Chicana activist. When I work with the local literacy program or work with the community women’s group, Las mujeres (The Women), I am also creating and impacting the world."
"A writer owes allegiance to herself first and foremost, and in honoring her truth all else falls into place. I love books, and I know the power of words to inspire and to incite, but I also know that writing can obfuscate and distort truth. Writers follow a path, although they don’t always know where it leads, and discover truths not always pleasant but critical."
Instructor children's group Los Reflejos de La Raza, 1976-1978. Co-chair local chapter Amnesty International, 1984-1988, member national task forces. Member board advisors women's center Laredo Junior College, 1986-1988.
President Literacy Volunteers American, Laredo, Texas, 1986-1988, board directors, 1988-1991, tutor trainer, English as Second Language tutor. Active Webb County History Commission, Sin Fronteras Cultural Arts Group, since 1989, Indigenous Women's Network, since 1990. Board directors Laredo Public Library., 1987-1991, vice president, 1990-1991.
Member American Association of University Women (local treasurer 1990-1992), Modern Language Association (member commission literature and languages American 1987-1989, member editorial board), American Association Higher Education, National Women's Studies Association, National Council Teachers English, National Association Chicano Studies, Texas Council Teachers English (member publications committee 1989, member nominations committee 1990), Texas Association Bilingual Education, Texas Joint Council Teachers English (program chair district I and II 1983, 88, general chair 1983, 89), Texas Committee Higher Education, Federation State Humanities Council (member conference planning committee 1989-1990), College Composition and Communications Conference, South Central Modern Languages Association, Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (conference coordinator summer 1991, chair elect 1992, chair 1993), Feministas Unidas, Las Mujeres (charter, organizer Primavera Conferences National Women's History Week 1982-1992), Laredo Philosophical Society (president 1983-1984, organizer lecture series).