Renowned Poet To Speak to Southwest Area High School Students

NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Estella Zavala, 225-6437 
Posted on: October 27, 2005

Renowned Chicano poet Jimmy Santiago Baca will speak to approximately 300 students from various southwest area high schools about Chicano and Native American literature from 11 a.m. to noon Friday, Oct. 28, in the auditorium at Pueblo High Magnet School, 3500 S. 12th Ave.

In addition to works by other Chicano and Native American writers, Mr. Baca will discuss his own writing, which has won numerous distinguished awards including the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the National Poetry Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award, and, for his memoir A Place To Stand, the prestigious International Award.

Organized by TUSD's Multicultural Studies Department, this special literary presentation by one of Chicano literature's most notable writers will host students from TUSD's Pueblo, Tucson and Rincon high schools as well as Sunnyside Unified School District's Desert View and Sunnyside high schools. Students selected to attend are currently participating in Native American and Chicano literary courses and Chicano Studies classes at their respective high schools.

Born in New Mexico of Chicano and Apache descent, Mr. Baca turned his life around after he was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison at the age of twenty-one. In prison, he learned to read and write and found his passion for poetry. His other books include: A Place to Stand, Healing Earthquakes, C-Train & Thirteen Mexicans, Black Mesa Poems, Martin & Meditations on the South Valley, and Immigrants in Our Own Land.

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