Mexican American scholar Dr. Manuel Medrano will discuss the legacy and increasing influence of Mexican Americans in Texas and the United States at Southern Arkansas University on February 27, 2014.
The event is free and open to the public. It is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the SAU Reynolds Center Foundation Hall.
Medrano’s speech is titled “Mexican Americans of South Texas: Heritage and Evolving Legacy.”
Medrano is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Brownsville, specializing in Mexican American history and culture. He is a member of the Humanities Texas Distinguished Speaker’s Bureau, the recipient of the University of Texas Board of Regents Outstanding Teaching Award, and the holder of the Houston Endowment for Civic Engagement.
He has authored or co-authored several books, including Medieval Culture and the Mexican American Borderlands, Charro Days in Brownsville, En Cuerpo y Mente, Imagenes, and En la Sombra de Mi Alma. Medrano’s most recent book is Américo Paredes, In His Own Words, An Authorized Biography. In addition, he has produced and directed twenty-three oral history profiles of people and events from south Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, including legendary folklorist Américo Paredes, acclaimed Tejano writer Rolando Hinojosa, and Chicano civil rights activist José Angel Gutierrez.
Medrano received his Ed.D. from the University of Houston. He has taught at the University of Texas at Brownsville since 1972.
