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January 18, 2007
DH 07 JH09
Contact: Joanie Harmon-Whetmore
(310) 243-2740/2001
Cal State Dominguez Hills Professor Publishes First Book-Length Biography on Pioneer of Chicana/o Studies
Carson, CA - José López Morín, associate professor of Chicana/o Studies, had his first book
published last fall, The Legacy of Américo Paredes (College Station, Texas A & M
University Press, 2006). The first book-length biography of the Mexican American
scholar, Legacy focuses on an interdisciplinary approach to teaching what Morín
calls an “in-between existence between North American and Mexican culture.
“I was overwhelmed with what he said in With His Pistol in His Hand (Austin, University
of Texas, 1958),” says Morín. “It’s actually his dissertation, about the cultural conflict
that took place in South Texas in 1901. Texas historians and folklorists at that time
had given a very distorted view of the Mexican people, and he challenged it.”
In With His Pistol, Paredes uses folklore to illustrate the marginalization
of a Mexican culture that existed along the lower Rio Grande region in the mid-1700s,
before the United States became a country. Morín cites the perpetuation of negative
stereotypes that continued through Paredes’ time, as a means to justify Anglo Americans
domination of that region. In his own book, Morín highlights Paredes’ postmodern approach
to the study of Chicana/o culture. This approach became an interdisciplinary program at
Paredes’ alma mater, the University of Texas, in the 1960s.
“Paredes looks at issues from various perspectives,” he says, "saying that in order for us to understand an issue or a historical event, we need to look
at it from as many different points of view as possible, to get closer to that understanding of
truth. He was able to revolutionize the study of culture,
because he understood both cultures so well.”
Morín, who utilizes an interdisciplinary approach in his own teaching by sharing folk music and
literature with his students, believes that studying the culture of a people is critical in
learning their history.
“The reason Paredes took that approach is that most minority groups in the United States
have not always had the tools of literacy, historically, to represent themselves, to defend
themselves," he says, "so they’ve relied on their folklore as their means of cultural survival. I think
that’s important, especially here in the United States, where we are in contact with so many
different people.”
Morín, whose students have entered a variety of fields, including law and education, hopes that
his legacy is to “teach my students to make this world a better place for all of us. I tell them
not to carry a chip on their shoulder, or to feel like this country owes us something, and that
we’re victims. By majoring in Chicana/o studies, they come to learn about themselves, about their
history, the world around them, and of the responsibilities that await them.”
CSU Dominguez Hills - University Communications & Public Affairs
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Carson, CA 90747
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