Américo Parédes
Américo Parédes was an influential Chicano journalist, educator, and folklorist, best known for his novel *George Washington Gómez: A Mexicotexan Novel*, published in 1990. Born in Brownsville, Texas, in 1915 to a family with deep roots in the region, he began his literary journey as a young poet published in local newspapers. Parédes served in World War II, after which he pursued higher education, earning a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Texas, followed by a Ph.D. in folklore. His academic career included teaching at the University of Texas at Austin, where he became a leading figure in Chicano studies. He is recognized for his comprehensive analysis of Mexican American folklore, notably through works like *With His Pistol in His Hand*, which chronicles the story of folk hero Gregorio Cortez. Parédes also edited significant studies on bilingualism and folklore and translated a collection of Mexican folktales, enriching the understanding of cultural narratives. His poetry, including collections such as *Cantos de adolescencia* and *Between Two Worlds*, reflects themes of cultural conflict and personal introspection. Parédes passed away in 1999, leaving behind a legacy that profoundly influenced Chicano literature and the preservation of Mexican American folklore.
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Américo Parédes
Folklorist
- Born: September 3, 1915
- Birthplace: Brownsville, Texas
- Died: May 5, 1999
- Place of death: Austin, Texas
Biography
Américo Parédes was a journalist, teacher, scholar, Chicano folklorist, and the writer of an underground classic, George Washington Gómez: A Mexicotexan Novel. Born in Brownsville, Texas, in 1915, Parédes was the son of Justo Parédes, a rancher, and Clotilde Monzano-Vidal Parédes. His parents’ ancestors settled in Texas in the eighteenth century, when it was a Spanish province. After graduating from Brownsville High School, Parédes attended community college and began writing poetry that was published in local newspapers.
He was sent overseas during World War II, subsequently writing for Stars and Stripes and becoming an administrator for the international Red Cross. Parédes received a B.A. in English from the University of Texas in 1951, completing his academic achievements with an M.A. in 1953 and a Ph.D., focused on folklore, in 1956. The following year he became a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin.
Parédes was considered an authority on Chicano folklore. Not only did he trace, analyze, and explicate many legends and tales of Mexican American culture, he has also immortalized the story of Gregorio Cortez in his book, With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero. That book is a fictionalized account of a man who became an outlaw in response to a misunderstanding between the law and an innocent citizen reacting to oppression. Cortez killed a sheriff in self- defense and then cleverly eluded authorities, becoming a folk hero. The story was told in legend, song, and a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) film adaptation that aired in 1982.
Parédes also translated and edited Folktales of Mexico, a work which provides a survey of Mexican folklore to 1970. Eighty-five tales are presented, including children’s stories, religious fables, and animal tales, and Parédes annotates, discusses, and places them in an historical context. In addition, Parédes edited numerous works dealing with urban folklore, Chicano studies, and Mexican folk songs, including border ballads. As a scholar, Parédes edited Humanidad: Essays in Honor of George I. Sanchez, a collection of essays examining bilingualism and biculturalism.
Parédes’s novel, George Washington Gómez: A Mexicotexan Novel, was published 1990 and celebrated as Parédes’s “most outstanding contribution to Chicano fiction.” It is a novel of revenge and despair depicting a violent society in the United States that reflects the larger conflict of the Mexican Revolution across the border. Parédes also wrote poetry, publishing Cantos de adolescencia, a collection of sixty-three poems of his early career, and Between Two Worlds, a collection of more than ninety poems, including both English and Spanish poems that explore such themes as man’s eternal anguish the dividing forces of opposing cultures, autobiographical elements, and ruminations on nature, beauty, and love.
Parédes died in 1999. His contribution to Chicano literature and folklore cannot be overestimated. His many works of scholarly study and his creative endeavors—poems, novels, and short stories—have distinguished him as a premier Chicano writer and promoter of Mexican American folklore.