Former Laredoan Selected as Keynote Speaker for Primavera Conference

Chicana writer Dr. Roberta Fernandez, a native of Laredo and fifth generation tejana, will be the keynote luncheon speaker for the 1998 Primavera Conference to be held at Texas A&M International University on Saturday, March 21.

Fernandez's book Intaglio: A Novel of Six Stories, about the transmission of women's culture on the Texas/Mexico border, was selected as Best Fiction for 1991 by Multicultural Publishers Exchange Her work has appeared in many anthologies, among them The Stories We Have Kept Secret: Tales of Women's Spiritual Development (1986), Short Fiction of Hispanic Writers of the United States (1993), and Barrios and Borderlands: Cultures of Latinos and Latinas in the United States (1994).

Fernandez received a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1994, she participated in the Simposio Internacional held in Lima, Peru commemorating the centenary of the birth of José Carlos Mariátegui. Next May she will present a paper on Texas/Mexico border culture at an international conference sponsored by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

She currently teaches in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at the University of Houston, where in 1992 she curated the exhibit "Twenty-Five Years of Hispanic Literature of the United States, 1965-1990." In September, she will join the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Georgia.

The 1998 Primavera Conference, cosponsored by the Women's Studies Minor Program at A&M International and Las Mujeres, will be held at the University in Pellegrino Hall on Saturday, March 21 from 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. Conference fees, including luncheon, are $10 for students and those on a fixed income and $20 for all others.

The conference, themed "Women as Bridges Across Time and Countries," will feature a variety of panels examining the role of women as historians, writers, artists, and community activists. Among the featured presenters are Guadalupe Loaeza, Mary Sue Galindo, Enriqueta Vasquez, and Linda Cuellar.

A "Tardeada" will be held the day after the conference, on Sunday, March 22, at 6 p.m. at the Casa de la Cultura in Nuevo Laredo. The Tardeada will feature literary readings and a presentation of books.

For more information on the 1998 Primavera Conference, please call A&M International Professor of English Dr. Norma E. Cantu at 326-2529 or Assistant Professor of English. Dr. Jeraldine R. Kraver at 326-2630. University office hours are from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday - Friday.

Information may also be secured via email at necantu@tamiu.edu or jkraver@tamiu.edu.

Journalists who need additional information or help with media requests and interviews should contact the Office of Public Affairs and Information Services at pais@tamiu.edu