On this Nuestra Palabra Rewind from October 2020, join us as we listen to an early interview Tony Diaz had with Mario Castillo, who at that time made history as the first Latino President for the Lone Star College System being named Interim President at the Kingwood campus for the 2020 to 2021 academic year. It's been a few years since Mario shared his story and demonstrated the power of leaders leading with Latino values, interests, and needs in mind. Ahead of the Celebrating Latino Art & Culture con el Chancellor Mario K. Castillo event on Thursday, April 25th, 2024, relisten to the interview that helped Houston get to know the future leader and now Chancellor, Mario K. Castillo. Join us on Thursday, April 25th, 2024, at Lone Star College - University Park at the Visual & Performing Arts Building at 930 University Park Campus Dr, Houston Texas, 77070 at 12 PM Noon with a special recognition for the Chancellor, followed by the eagerly anticipated 7th Annual Juried Student Art Show. Thank you to the following: Lone Star College Partners Lone Star College Board of Trustees The Latino Cultural Experts Committee LSC LASO Houston North Puente LSC - HN Thank you to our Community Partners: Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say The American Leadership Forum ALMAAHH - Advocates of a Latino Museum of Cultural and Visual Arts & Archive Complex in Houston, Harris County Que Onda Magazine LULAC Mario K. Castillo J.D. was named the fifth Chancellor of Lone Star College System in August 2023. Prior to that, Castillo served the College as Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel. His responsibilities have progressed through the years; starting as the College’s General Counsel in 2015, he was promoted to Vice Chancellor and General Counsel in 2016 and again promoted to Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel in 2017. Additionally, he served as Interim President at the Kingwood campus for the 2020 to 2021 academic year. Castillo’s focus is the College’s students. He has reshaped processes and procedures to be student centric and student informed. He understands you cannot be what you cannot see, and therefore ensures he meets students where they are at. Castillo provides numerous student scholarship and internship opportunities and regularly meets with students to offer career advice. He prioritizes student speaking engagements and student outreach. Castillo received his Juris Doctorate from the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University in Bloomington and received his Bachelor of Arts in Government from The University of Texas at Austin. Castillo is a first-generation high school (on his mother’s side), college, and law school student as well as a first-generation American. He enjoys overly ambitious home improvement projects, recently completed Ironman Texas, and is an avid reader. Tony Diaz Writer and activist Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, is a Cultural Accelerator. He was the first Chicano to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. In 1998, he founded Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say (NP), Houston’s first reading series for Latino authors. The group galvanized Houston’s Community Cultural Capital to become a movement for civil rights, education, and representation. When Arizona officials banned Mexican American Studies, Diaz and four veteran members of NP organized the 2012 Librotraficante Caravan to smuggle books from the banned curriculum back into Arizona. He is the author of The Aztec Love God. His book, The Tip of the Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital, is the first in his series on Community Organizing. Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund. Instrumental Music produced / courtesy of Bayden Records baydenrecords.beatstars.com

Relive the community event celebrating Mario Castillo making history as the first Latino Chancellor for Lone Star College! La gente celebrated Tuesday, March 20th, 2024, at Spanish Flowers to congratulate Chancellor Mario K. Castillo. We had so many folks join us, including: Lone Star College Partners Art Murillo, Lone Star College Board of Trustee The Latino Cultural Experts Committee LSC LASO Houston North Puente LSC - HN Thank you to our Community Partners: Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say The American Leadership Forum ALMAAHH - Advocates of a Latino Museum of Cultural and Visual Arts & Archive Complex in Houston, Harris County Que Onda Magazine LULAC Tony Diaz Writer and activist Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, is a Cultural Accelerator. He was the first Chicano to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. In 1998, he founded Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say (NP), Houston’s first reading series for Latino authors. The group galvanized Houston’s Community Cultural Capital to become a movement for civil rights, education, and representation. When Arizona officials banned Mexican American Studies, Diaz and four veteran members of NP organized the 2012 Librotraficante Caravan to smuggle books from the banned curriculum back into Arizona. He is the author of The Aztec Love God. His book, The Tip of the Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital, is the first in his series on Community Organizing. Tony hosts Latino Politics and News and the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show on 90.1 FM, KPFT, Houston’s Community Station. He is also a political analyst on “What’s Your Point?” on Fox 26 Houston. * This is part of a Nuestra Palabra Multiplatform broadcast. * Video airs on www.Fox26Houston.com. * Audio airs on 90.1 FM Houston, KPFT, Houston's Community Station, where our show began. * Live events. Thanks to Roxana Guzman, Multiplatform Producer Rodrigo Bravo, Jr., Audio Producer Radame Ortiez, SEO Director Marc-Antony Piñón, Graphics Designer Leti Lopez, Music Director Bryan Parras, co-host and producer emeritus Liana Lopez, co-host and producer emeritus Lupe Mendez, co-host, and producer emeritus www.Librotraficante.com www.NuestraPalabra.org www.TonyDiaz.net Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund. Instrumental Music produced / courtesy of Bayden Records baydenrecords.beatstars.com

Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, speaks w/ the featured artists for the celebration of poetry, prose, and visual expression w/ a special event: Nuestra Palabra & Tintero Projects Present: Poetry at Torre Latina! The night will feature a Q&A w/ our poets & artists, book signing, visual art exhibits, and a preview of the new Nuestra Palabra offices at Torre Latina are included and the best part is that admission is free. Tuesday, March 5th, 2024 Nuestra Palabra & Tintero Projects Present: POETRY AT TORRE LATINA @ Torre Latina Professional Building 150 W Parker Rd., 5th Floor (I-45N @ Parker Rd) Houston, TX 77076 FREE ADMISSION Our featured guests: ire’ne lara silva The 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate and the author of five poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, FirstPoems, and the eaters of flowers, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. ire’ne is currently a Writer at Large for Texas Highways Magazine and is working on a second collection of short stories titled, the light of your body. Her first comic book, VENDAVAL, will be released by the Chispa Imprint of Scout Comics in April 2024. Octavio Quintanilla Author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014) and served as the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX. His poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as Salamander, RHINO, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. His Frontextos (visual poems) have been published in Poetry Northwest, Gold Wake Live, Newfound, Chachalaca Review, & The Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas. Octavio’s visual work has been exhibited at the Southwest School of Art, Presa House Gallery, Equinox Gallery, UTRGV-Brownsville, the Weslaco Museum, and in the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center / Black Box Theater in Austin, TX. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and is the regional editor for Texas Books in Review and poetry editor for The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism & for Voices de la Luna: A Quarterly Literature & Arts Magazine. Octavio teaches Literature and Creative Writing in the M.A./M.F.A. program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. Angelina Sáenz An award-winning educator and poet. She is a UCLA Writing Project fellow, an alumna of the VONA/Voices Workshop for Writers of Color and a Macondo Writer's Workshop Fellow. Her poetry has appeared in venues such as Diálogo, Split this Rock, Out of Anonymity, Angels Flight Literary West, Every Other, Cockpit Revue Paris and The Acentos Review. Her debut book of poetry Edgecliff was released in December of 2021 w/ FlowerSongPress. Maestra, is her second collection of poetry. Marie Elena Cortés Marie graduated from Houston Baptist University in 1996 and has teaching experience in Elementary and Middle School. Since, Cortes created her writing club in 2005, Kids Write to Know, she has presented to over 200,000 students, parents and educators at schools, libraries, churches, festivals, and conferences in over 45 cities in the USA, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Marie Elena’s powerful multimedia presentations include storytelling, poetry, art, mini-writing workshops, and readings of her books: “My Annoying Little Brother”, “My First Classroom” and NEGLECTED BY TWO COUNTRIES-winner of the International Latino Book Awards (2014) and Books into Movies Award (2015). Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund. Instrumental Music produced / courtesy of Bayden Records baydenrecords.beatstars.com

The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center's Latino Bookstore, as part of the Texas Author Series, welcomes Dr. Carmen Tafolla as she presents and reads from her latest book WARRIOR GIRL! Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante and Literary Curator for the GCAC's Latino Bookstore, hosts the Texas Author Series every second Friday of the month. Carmen talks about the book, it’s representation, and how this novel is defying the books bans occurring now and reads several poems from the book. Her book, published through Penguin Random House, is available through various online stores but also at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center's Latino Bookstore and makes an excellent addition to your family library, public library, and underground library. Carmen Tafolla is the 2015 State Poet Laureate of Texas and the former president of the Texas Institute of Letters. An award-winning poet and children’s author, storyteller, perfor­mance artist, motivational speaker, scholar, and university professor, she is the author of more than forty books and a profes­sor emeritus of Transformative Children’s Literature at @UTSA. Her numerous awards and distinctions include the pres­tigious Américas Award, the designation of first city Poet Laureate of San Antonio, six International Latino Book Awards, two Tomás Rivera Book Awards, two ALA Notable Books, the Art of Peace Award, and the Charlotte Zolotow Award. WARRIOR GIRL (@penguinrandomhouse, 2023) chronicles Celina and her family who are bilingual and follow both Mexican and American traditions. Celina revels in her Mexican heritage, but once she starts school it feels like the world wants her to erase that part of her identity. Fortunately, she’s got an army of family and three fabulous new friends behind her to fight the ignorance. But it’s her Gramma who’s her biggest inspiration, encouraging Celina to build a shield of joy around herself . Because when you’re celebrating, when you find a reason to sing or dance or paint or play or laugh or write, they haven’t taken everything away from you. Of course, it’s not possible to stay in celebration mode when things get dire--like when her dad’s deported and a pandemic hits--but if there is anything Celina’s sure of, it’s that she’ll always live up to her last Guerrera--woman warrior--and that she will use her voice and writing talents to show the world it’s a more beautiful place because people like her are in it. Tony Diaz Writer and activist Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, is a Cultural Accelerator. He was the first Chicano to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. In 1998, he founded Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say (NP), Houston’s first reading series for Latino authors. The group galvanized Houston’s Community Cultural Capital to become a movement for civil rights, education, and representation. When Arizona officials banned Mexican American Studies, Diaz and four veteran members of NP organized the 2012 Librotraficante Caravan to smuggle books from the banned curriculum back into Arizona. He is the author of The Aztec Love God. His book, The Tip of the Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital, is the first in his series on Community Organizing. Tony hosts Latino Politics and News and the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show on 90.1 FM, KPFT, Houston’s Community Station. He is also a political analyst on “What’s Your Point?” on Fox 26 Houston. * This is part of a Nuestra Palabra Multiplatform broadcast. * Video airs on www.Fox26Houston.com. * Audio airs on 90.1 FM Houston, KPFT, Houston's Community Station, where our show began. Thanks to Roxana Guzman, Multiplatform Producer Rodrigo Bravo, Jr., Audio Producer www.Librotraficante.com www.NuestraPalabra.org www.TonyDiaz.net Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund. Instrumental Music produced / courtesy of Bayden Records baydenrecords.beatstars.com

Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say and the Harris County Public Library invite you to join us for a book giveaway and discussion of Nuestra Palabra's 2024 Big Read selection, INFINITE COUNTRY by Patricia Engel. The first 50 attendees to register will receive a free copy of the book, courtesy of Nuestra Palabra through the Big Read grant. Tony speaks w/ several guests about the Big Read and the importance of literary events like these! Tony speaks with HCPL's Assistant Manager for Youth Services Anjela Martinez, Colombian anthropologist Dr. Esteban Acuña, & Victory Early College Student Andreina Dos Santos about the impact the book and books like it have. Although the event is free and open to the public, limited seating is available. Please use the link below to register: https://hcpl.bibliocommons.com/events/65b003ecf664ce3300228bc5 In addition to receiving a free copy of the book, guests will enjoy refreshments and an interactive panel discussion about the book, hosted by Tony Diaz, Founder of El Librotraficante and Director of Nuestra Palabra. Audience members will have the opportunity to participate and ask questions but should not feel pressured to have read the book ahead of time. Please register on this page to be eligible for book giveaway. Feel free to bring guests to the event, but each guest that would like to receive a book should register separately, as we will hold one book per registration for the first 50. Note: Must attend event in person to receive free book. In Infinite Country, award-winning author Patricia Engel tells the powerful tale of a family divided. Set in Colombia and the United States and told through the shifting perspectives of each family member, Engel examines the beauty and cruelty of life in the diaspora, crafting “a breathtaking story of the unimaginable prices paid for a better life” (Esquire). With “meticulously rendered descriptions of Andean landscapes and mythology” (New York Times Book Review), Infinite Country is “at once a sweeping love story and tragic drama” (Elle), “forcefully examining what unites a family beyond the divisions borders and policies forge” (Los Angeles Review of Books). Through the intimacies of one family’s story, Engel “challenges us to consider that the United States has always been a place of borders” (Harvard Review of Books). “Told by a chorus of voices and perspectives, this is as much an all-American story as it is a global one” (Booklist). NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. Learn more about Nuestra Palabra: https://www.nuestrapalabra.orgegister Anjela Martinez is the Youth Services Assistant Manager for Harris County Public Library. Anjela has worked for Harris County Public Library for thirteen years. She's passionate about providing library resources and programs to help children become life-long readers, learners, and library users. Anjela contributes her love for reading to her mother who introduced a young Anjela to a boy wizard named Harry. Besides reading, Anjela enjoys spending time with her family and friends, baking, traveling, and going on adventures with her dog Lobo. Anjela is currently reading Infinite Country by Patricia Engel and The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander. Dr. Esteban Acuña is a Colombian anthropologist who specializes in ethnicity, mobility and migration. He is currently a visiting scholar at SUNY at Plattsburgh, and before recently moving to Houston he also taught at Freiburg University, in Germany, and Bard College, in New York. His latest ethnographic work has used life stories and mobile methods to study migratory movements in the Americas. Victory Early College Student Andreina Dos Santos is a student at Lone Star Community College and an active scholar. Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund. Instrumental Music produced / courtesy of Bayden Records baydenrecords.beatstars.com

Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante and Political Analyst on What's Your Point on Fox 26 News, welcomes Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones. Commissioner Briones shares her work in improving Precinct 4, an important gun buyback program taking place this November 18th, and her literacy advocacy, with her recent appearance at NP's & NEA's Big Read event in September as well as the Harris County Proclamation given to Nuestra Palabra and Tony Diaz for 25 years of cultivating community cultural capital. Join us on NP Live at a special time this Wednesday, November 8th, at 9:00 AM CST as part of our multi stream broadcast. You can check out the show on Youtube, Facebook, or Twitter! Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones is a native Texan and proud Latina who grew up on the U.S.-Mexico border. She is the daughter of teachers, who taught her the importance of education, hard work, and serving others—values that have defined her and which she now brings to the office of County Commissioner for Precinct 4. Upon graduating with honors from Harvard University, she began her career as an 8th and 10th-grade teacher at two of the lowest-income public schools in the country. She then attended Yale Law School, where she led the Latino Law Students’ Association's public service initiatives and provided pro-bono assistance to survivors of domestic abuse and juvenile offenders. Commissioner Briones returned to Texas to practice law at Vinson & Elkins LLP, then served as General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer of the Laura & John Arnold Foundation, a major national philanthropic nonprofit. She next became the Judge of Harris County Civil Court at Law No. 4. Judge Briones was the highest-rated Harris County Civil Court at Law Judge in the 2019 Houston Bar Association (HBA) Judicial Evaluation Poll and won the 2020 HBA Judicial Preference Poll. Briones co-founded the statewide nonprofit Texas Latinx Judges and serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center. She and her husband, Adán, live in Houston with their three daughters and worship at St. Ambrose Catholic Church.

The Houston Cultural Treasures Announcement Event and State of the Network Panel - Recorded Live on 11.02.2023 - at The DeLUXE Theater. The BIPOC Arts Network and Fund named the cohort of 11 organizations named as Houston Cultural Treasures. The panel discussion framed learning and hopes from different segments of BANF communities. BANF will invest $5 million over two years (2024-25) in eleven organizations w/ both technical support and unrestricted cash funding. Houston Cultural Treasures invests in the arts organizations that have anchored our communities of color and shaped Houston’s dynamic and diverse culture that we benefit from today. We honor their survival, persistence, and resilience. The Houston arts community has celebrated its ability to collaborate and connect. We celebrate that connectedness as a Houston strength and are building a two-year learning cohort of BIPOC organizations and their leadership as an essential part of the experience. To be a Houston Cultural Treasure is to commit to strengthening the Houston BIPOC arts ecosystem. BANF’s vision is an ecosystem that empowers BIPOC artists, organizations, and communities in the Greater Houston Area w/ transformative opportunities to dream, connect, collaborate, and create. The Houston Cultural Treasures initiative is part of a larger national initiative from the Ford Foundation created to acknowledge and honor the diversity of artistic expression and excellence across the nation.” The institutions honored today are: Arte Publico Press Buffalo Soldiers National Museum Community Artists’ Collective Community Music Center of Houston Houston Museum of African American Culture Indo-American Association Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts (MECA) The Nia Cultural Center SHAPE Community Center Silambam Houston Join us in preserving history, building community, and creating the future by supporting these institutions; visit their websites and find out how you can support these Houston Cultural Treasures. ********************************************************************************************* BIPOC Arts Network & FundBIPOC Arts Network & Fund A revolutionary arts ecosystem empowering BIPOC artists, organizations, and communities. BANF is revolutionizing the local funding landscape and breaking down silos within the arts ecosystem to create transformative opportunities where they can dream, connect, collaborate, and create. BIPOC Arts Network and Fund, or BANF, revolutionizes the local funding landscape, breaks down silos within the arts ecosystem, and welcomes everyone to support and learn from BIPOC arts communities. We utilize equity-focused and community-participatory funding initiatives; community-informed evaluation and learning practices; and asset-based network building strategies to inform leadership, advocacy, and action. BANF was created in a time of crisis to provide resources and networks that support the vibrant Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern and other communities of color of Greater Houston in fully displaying their power, values and traditions. At its launch, BANF invested $2 million into BIPOC-founded and led organizations and fiscally-sponsored artist collectives that promote, preserve, and celebrate Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and other communities of color through arts and cultural programming. This one-time investment was an effort to provide direct and urgent support for Houston’s BIPOC arts ecosystem in the face of the pandemic and compounded crises. BANF is an independent initiative whose programming is funded by the generous contributions of national and local foundations, including Houston Endowment, the Ford Foundation, The Brown Foundation, Inc., The Cullen Foundation, Kinder Foundation and The Powell Foundation.;

Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante & Literary Curator for the Latino Bookstore at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (GCAC) in San Antonio Texas, welcomes award-winning Seattle writer, teacher, and editor Alma García as she returns to her El Paso roots with her debut novel, ALL THAT RISES (University of Arizona Press, 2023), a story of secrets, lies, border politics, and discovering what it means to belong—within a family, as well as in the world beyond, ahead of her Texas Author Series appearance on November 10th, 2023 at the Guadalupe's Latino Bookstore. Join us for NP Live on October 9th, 2023 at 7:30 PM CDT via our Nuestra Palabra's multi-stream platform broadcast on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube! Alma García is a writer whose award-winning short fiction has appeared in Narrative Magazine and most recently in phoebe and the anthology Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century. She is a past recipient of a fellowship from the Rona Jaffe Foundation. Originally from El Paso and later from Albuquerque, she now lives in Seattle, where she teaches fiction writing at the Hugo House and is a manuscript consultant. In her debut novel, ALL THAT RISES, two guardedly neighboring families in El Paso, Texas, have plunged headlong into a harrowing week. Rose Marie DuPre, wife and mother, has abandoned her family. On the doorstep of the Gonzales’ home, long-lost rebel Inez appears. As Rose Marie’s husband, Huck (manager of a maquiladora), and Inez’s brother, Jerry (a college professor), struggle separately with the new shape of their worlds, Lourdes, the Mexican maid who works in both homes, finds herself entangled in the lives of her employers, even as she grapples with a teenage daughter who only has eyes for el otro lado—life, American style. What follows is a story in which mysteries are unraveled, odd alliances are forged, and the boundaries between lives blur in destiny-changing ways—all in a place where the physical border between two countries is as palpable as it is porous, and the legacies of history are never far away. There are no easy solutions to the issues the characters face in this story, and their various realities—as undocumented workers, Border Patrol agents, the American supervisor of a Mexican factory employing an impoverished workforce—never play out against a black-and-white moral canvas. Instead, they are complex human beings with sometimes messy lives who struggle to create a place for themselves in a part of the world like no other, even as they are forced to confront the lives they have made. ALL THAT RISES is about secrets, lies, border politics, and discovering where you belong—within a family, as well as in the world beyond. It is a novel for the times we live in, set in a place many people know only from the news. Tony Diaz Writer and activist Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, is a Cultural Accelerator. He was the first Chicano to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. In 1998, he founded Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say (NP), Houston’s first reading series for Latino authors. The group galvanized Houston’s Community Cultural Capital to become a movement for civil rights, education, and representation. When Arizona officials banned Mexican American Studies, Diaz and four veteran members of NP organized the 2012 Librotraficante Caravan to smuggle books from the banned curriculum back into Arizona. He is the author of The Aztec Love God. His book, The Tip of the Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital, is the first in his series on Community Organizing. Tony hosts Latino Politics and News and the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show on 90.1 FM, KPFT, Houston’s Community Station. He is also a political analyst on “What’s Your Point?” on Fox 26 Houston. Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund. Instrumental Music produced / courtesy of Bayden Records baydenrecords.beatstars.com

Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante & Literary Curator for the Latino Bookstore at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (GCAC) in San Antonio Texas, welcomes professor Dr. Jesús Jesse Esparza, Associate Professor in the Department of History, Geography, and General Studies at Texas Southern University, to discuss his book RAZA SCHOOLS (University of Oklahoma Press, 2023) ahead of his Texas Author Series appearance on November 10th, 2023 at the GCAC's Latino Bookstore. Join us on NP LIve on October 16th, 2023 at 6:30 PM CDT as part of Nuestra Palabra's multi-stream platform broadcast on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. In 1929, a Latino community in the borderlands city of Del Rio, Texas, established the first and perhaps only autonomous Mexican American school district in Texas history. How it did so—against a background of institutional racism, poverty, and segregation—is the story Jesús Jesse Esparza tells in RAZA SCHOOLS, a history of the rise and fall of the San Felipe Independent School District from the end of World War I through the post–civil rights era. Telling the complex story of how territorial pride, race and racism, politics, economic pressures, local control, and the federal government collided in Del Rio, Raza Schools recovers a lost chapter in the history of educational civil rights—and in doing so, offers a more nuanced understanding of race relations, educational politics, and school activism in the US-Mexico borderlands. Dr. Jesús Jesse Esparza is an Associate Professor of History in the College of Liberal Arts and Behavioral Sciences at Texas Southern University, where he has taught since 2009. His area of expertise is on the history of Latinos in the United States, emphasizing civil rights activism. Dr. Esparza’s manuscript, Raza Schools: The Fight for Latino Educational Autonomy in a West Texas Borderlands Town, is scheduled for release in September 2023. The University of Oklahoma Press will publish it as part of the New Directions in Tejano History series. Dr. Esparza teaches Mexican American, Texas, and Civil Rights history. He received his B.A. and a master’s degree in History from Southwest Texas State University and a Ph.D. in History in 2008 from the University of Houston. Tony Diaz Writer and activist Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, is a Cultural Accelerator. He was the first Chicano to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. In 1998, he founded Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say (NP), Houston’s first reading series for Latino authors. The group galvanized Houston’s Community Cultural Capital to become a movement for civil rights, education, and representation. When Arizona officials banned Mexican American Studies, Diaz and four veteran members of NP organized the 2012 Librotraficante Caravan to smuggle books from the banned curriculum back into Arizona. He is the author of The Aztec Love God. His book, The Tip of the Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital, is the first in his series on Community Organizing. Tony hosts Latino Politics and News and the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show on 90.1 FM, KPFT, Houston’s Community Station. He is also a political analyst on “What’s Your Point?” on Fox 26 Houston. * This is part of a Nuestra Palabra Multiplatform broadcast. * Video airs on www.Fox26Houston.com. * Audio airs on 90.1 FM Houston, KPFT, Houston's Community Station, where our show began. * Live events. Thanks to Roxana Guzman, Multiplatform Producer Rodrigo Bravo, Jr., Audio Producer Radame Ortiez, SEO Director Marc-Antony Piñón, Graphics Designer Leti Lopez, Music Director Bryan Parras, co-host and producer emeritus Liana Lopez, co-host and producer emeritus Lupe Mendez, co-host, and producer emeritus www.Librotraficante.com www.NuestraPalabra.org www.TonyDiaz.net Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund. Instrumental Music produced / courtesy of Bayden Records baydenrecords.beatstars.com

Internationally renowned ceramicist Veronica Castillo alongside Professor Emerita and Independent Publisher Dr. Josie Méndez-Negrete join us in spotlighting their co-authored book, "Rooted in Clay: El Arte de Verónica Castillo." Tony delves into the book written as a plática in which Castillo shares her life work, inspiration, politics, and history with Méndez-Negrete alongside images of her sculptures and experiences that led her to be one of the first artists requested to submit work for the newly launched Latino Heritage Museum for the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. Her artwork, primarily ceramics that focus on the “tree of life,” is deeply connected to her indigenous roots in Mexico as well the transformations in aesthetic expressions that have occurred as a result of her work with revolutionary indigenous groups and moving to San Antonio. *********** Verónica Castillo is an internationally acclaimed artist from Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, México. At a very young age, under the tutelage of her parents, renowned artists Don Alfonso Castillo Orta and Doña Soledad Martha Hernández Báez, she was exposed to the artistic technique of working in polychromatic ceramics, a tradition passed on from generation to generation. Verónica continues to build upon these traditions while focusing on contemporary issues of injustice and inequality. Her exhibits have achieved national and international recognition, from the Smithsonian in Washington DC to the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago to the Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico. In 2013, Verónica Castillo received the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Award. She is the owner of E.V.A. (Ecos y Voces de Arte), a gallery on the Southside of San Antonio. Together with an international network of artists, E.V.A. offers the space and support for various forms of cultural art to thrive. Josie Méndez-Negrete PhD, Professor Emerita in Mexican American Studies at the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies (BBL), University of Texas at San Antonio, received her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Duke University Press published Las hijas de Juan: Daughters Betrayed as a revised edition in 2006 and reprinted it in 2010. In 2015, the University of New Mexico Press published her second book, A Life on Hold: Living with Schizophrenia. Along with publishing book chapter and articles on culture, identity, and education, from 2009 2014, Méndez-Negrete served as Lead Editor of Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of MALCS. She served as chair of the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) and of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS). In 2021, The University of Arizona, Tucson, published Activist Leaders of San José, California: En sus propias voces (2021). In March 2017, she established Conocimientos as an independent with the vision of publishing untold or hidden Raza stories. The press’s first publication—Women, Mujeres, Ixoq’: Revolutionary Visions—edited by Claudia D. Hernández received the 2019 International Latino Book Gold Medal Award. In 2023, Rooted in Clay: El arte de Verónica Castillo was published by Conocimientos Press. Transcript

Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante & Literary Curator for the Latino Bookstore at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center welcomes award winning author and distinguished professor Dr. Norma Cantu to the show to discuss her latest book CHICANA PORTRAITS: CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES OF TWELVE CHICANA WRITERS (University of Arizona Press 2023) ahead of her Texas Author Series appearance on October 13th 2023 at the Guadalupe. Join us for a lively discussion over this amazing anthology that spotlights 12 literary figures from 12 authors who themselves are making a name for themselves. Norma describes the process and reads from the book and shares some of her thoughts on the current state of book bans and censorship culture. Dr. Norma E. Cantú is a scholar-activist who currently serves as the Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University. She is founder and director of the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa. She has published fiction, poetry, and personal essays in a number of venues. Her latest book CHICANA PORTRAITS is an innovative collection that pairs portraits with critical biographies of twelve key Chicana writers, offering an engaging look at their work, contributions to the field, and major achievements. Artist Raquel Valle-Sentíes’s portraits bring visual dimension, while essays delve deeply into the authors’ lives for details that inform their literary, artistic, feminist, and political trajectories and sensibilities. The collection brilliantly intersects artistic visual and literary cultural productions, allowing complex themes to emerge, such as the fragility of life, sexism and misogyny, Chicana agency and forging one’s own path, the struggles of becoming a writer and battling self-doubt, economic instability, and political engagement and activism. Biographies included in this work include Raquel Valle-Sentíes, Angela de Hoyos, Montserrat Fontes, Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Norma E. Cantú, Denise Elia Chávez, Carmen Tafolla, Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Sandra Cisneros, and Demetria Martínez. Tony Diaz Writer and activist Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, is a Cultural Accelerator. He was the first Chicano to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. In 1998, he founded Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say (NP), Houston’s first reading series for Latino authors. His book, The Tip of the Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital, is the first in his series on Community Organizing. Tony hosts Latino Politics and News and the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show on 90.1 FM, KPFT, Houston’s Community Station. He is also a political analyst on “What’s Your Point?” on Fox 26 Houston. www.Librotraficante.com www.NuestraPalabra.org www.TonyDiaz.net Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund. Instrumental Music produced / courtesy of Bayden Records baydenrecords.beatstars.com