South Texas College’s annual Hispanic Heritage Month festivities officially kicked off on Tuesday and will continue through mid-October with several campus-wide activities, including the “Pláticas Sol de Aztlán Lecture Series” that will feature several award-winning authors.
The STC Library events during the month-long Hispanic Heritage celebration are free and open to the public.
“It’s an honor to be able to have the caliber of guests that will be visiting our campuses and talking to our students and community during STC’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration,” said STC Librarian Esther Garcia. “This is a great opportunity to celebrate our culture and learn about the people that have made and are making a difference in our society, and to see that it is possible to do so through hard work and education.”
Historian and poet Teresa Palomo Acosta will visit STC from Sept. 22-24 as part of the college’s Hispanic Heritage celebration. She is a seminal figure in collecting and uncovering oral histories and preserving the stories of Mexican-Americans across Texas.
Palomo Acosta will present her lecture, “Preserving Historias Familiares: An Oral History Workshop” on Sept. 22 at 1 p.m. at STC’s Starr County Campus in Rio Grande City, on Sept. 23 at 1 p.m. at the college’s Pecan Campus Library in McAllen, and conclude on Sept. 24 at 1 p.m. at the Mid-Valley Campus Library in Weslaco.
The following week, on Sept. 30 at 6 p.m., Rio Grande Valley distinguished poets, Emmy Perez, Lina Suarez, Erika Garza and Isaac Chavarria will read at the STC Pecan Campus library’s poetry event, “Voices of the Border.” Perez is the author of Solstice and a new poetry manuscript With the River on our Face. The event will be followed by pan dulce and a booksigning.
On Oct. 16 at 6 p.m. at the Pecan Campus Library Rainbow Room, author Alfonso Gonzales will give a presentation and receive the Américo Paredes Book Award for his work titled, “Reform Without Justice: Latino Migrant Politics and the Homeland Security State.”
To conclude the lecture series, internationally renowned journalist and author Sonia Nazario will give a presentation at the Pecan Campus Library Rainbow Room on Oct. 18 at 12 p.m. Her book, “Enrique’s Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother” has won over a dozen awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, and was named a national best seller. Nazario has been named among the most influential Latinos by Hispanic Business Magazine and a “trendsetter” by Hispanic Magazine. In 2012, Columbia Journalism Review named Nazario among “40 women who changed the media business in the past 40.”
In addition to the “Pláticas Sol de Aztlán” Lecture Series, STC’s libraries will show two films, “César Chávez” and “Rebel: Loreta Velasquez, Secret Soldier of the American Civil War” throughout the months of September and October to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.
The guest speakers are sponsored by STC’s Library Services, Center for Mexican American Studies, the college’s Division of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, and the PUENTE Program.
For more information about these events and STC’s Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration, visit https://library.southtexascollege.edu/libraryevents or contact Esther Garcia at (956) 872-6485 or egarcia10@southtexascollege.edu.
