Garciá, Mario T.

PERSONAL:

Male. Education: University of Texas, El Paso, B.A., 1966, M.A., 1968; University of California, San Diego, Ph.D., 1975.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9410; fax: 805-893-8795. E-mail—garcia@ history.ucsb.edu

CAREER:

Educator and writer. University of Texas, El Paso, TX, instructor of history, 1968-69; San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, instructor of history, 1969-70; San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, instructor of Chicano studies, 1970-74; Yale University, New Haven, CT, visiting professor of history and American studies, 1988-89, professor of history and American studies and director of ethnic studies, 1990-92; University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, professor of American history, 1975—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Center for the Study of the Behavioral Sciences fellow, 1978-79; Southwest Book Award, 1981, for Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920, 1989, for Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology and Identity, 1930-1960, 1994, for Memories of Chicano History: The Life and Narrative of Bert Corona, 1995, for Border Correspondent: Selected Writings, 1955-1970, 1998, for The Making of a Mexican-American Mayor: Raymond L. Telles of El Paso; Ford postdoctoral fellow, 1982- 83; Woodrow Wilson Center fellow, 1984; Guggenheim fellow, 1992-93; El Paso Writers Hall of Fame, 1996; Faculty Teaching Award, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2002; Southwest Book Award.

WRITINGS:

Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880- 1920, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1981.

(With others) History, Culture, and Society: Chicano Studies in the 1980s, Bilingual Press (Ypsilanti, MI), 1983.

Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology and Identity, 1930-1960, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1989.

Memories of Chicano History: The Life and Narrative of Bert Corona, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1994.

(Editor, with author Ruben Salazar) Border Correspondent: Selected Writings, 1955-1970, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1995.

The Making of a Mexican-American Mayor: Raymond L. Telles of El Paso, Texas Western Press, University of Texas at El Paso (El Paso, TX), 1998.

(Editor) Bridging Cultures: An Introduction to Chicano/Latino Studies, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company (Dubuque, IA), 2000.

Luis Leal: An Auto/biography, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 2000.

(With Frances Esquibel Tywoniak) Migrant Daughter: Coming of Age as a Mexican-American Woman, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.

Padre: The Life and Spiritual Journey of Father Virgil Cordano and the Franciscans of California, Capra Press (Santa Barbara, CA), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

A professor of American history who focuses on Chicano studies, Mario T. Garciá has written prolifically about the experiences of Mexican Americans at a point in history when the Chicano civil rights movement was just beginning. Among Garciá's books, Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology and Identity, 1930-1960 chronicles the Mexican-American civil rights movement that gained momentum in the mid-twentieth century. The 1929 founding of the League of United Latin American Citizens set the stage for thirty years of firsts for Mexican Americans, and Garciá discusses the contributions of politicians, unionized workers, academicians, and activists. In a review for the New York Times, Rudolfo A. Anaya described the book as a "fine presentation and a painstaking analysis," further noting: "Mr. Garciá skillfully details the struggles of Mexican-Americans to earn a rightful place in society.… The generation Mr. Garciá depicts produced such heroes and heroines, and his research is not only a thoughtful review of their history, it is a tribute."

Memories of Chicano History: The Life and Narrative of Bert Corona is a biography of an important figure in Mexican-American activism. Corona has been credited (along with several other activists) with initiating the modern-day Chicano movement. Booklist reviewer John Mort called Memories of Chicano History a "readable, meditative blend of autobiography, labor chronicle, and Chicano history."

In The Making of a Mexican-American Mayor: Raymond L. Telles of El Paso, Garciá focuses on a prominent politician of Mexican descent. Raymond Telles forged many "firsts" during his political career in the mid-twentieth century, including being the first Mexican-American county clerk in his region, the first Mexican-American mayor of a major U.S. city, and the first Mexican American in several key national and international positions, including U.S. ambassador, head of the U.S.-Mexico Border Commission, and member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Social Science Quarterly contributor José Angel Gutierrez commented that Garciá's "monograph will aid teachers and students looking for historical information and looking to find heroes among Mexican-American public figures."

Garciá drew from interviews with Frances Esquibel Tywoniak, a retired schoolteacher who was the only Mexican American in her hometown to attend college, to compose Migrant Daughter: Coming of Age as a Mexican-American Woman. Esquibel Tywoniak's story begins with her impoverished upbringing and follows her through her early schooling, her developing love of learning, her years in college, and her marriage to a non-Chicano. Rosaura Sanchez wrote in a California History review that the book "provides readers with an important account of migrant life in California during the 1940s and 1950s.… It is an intimate first-person account of a young girl's coming of age amidst the hardship of labor camps and the fields."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 1994, John Mort, review of Memories of Chicano History: The Life and Narrative of Bert Corona, p. 1512.

California History, Spring-Fall, 2002, Rosaura Sanchez, review of Migrant Daughter: Coming of Age as a Mexican-American Woman, p. 156.

Social Science Quarterly, June, 2000, José Angel Gutierrez, review of The Making of a Mexican- American Mayor: Raymond L. Telles of El Paso, p. 687.

ONLINE

New York Times Online,http://www.nytimes.com/ (March 4, 1990), Rudolfo A. Anaya, "Neglected Minority," review of Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology and Identity, 1930-1960.

University of California at Santa Barbara Chicano Studies,http://www.chicst.ucsb.edu/ (November 27, 2006), author's personal page.