‘Santiago’s Children’ Author Visits TAMIU Friday

Writer Steve Reifenberg will speak at Texas A&M International University Friday, Oct. 7 at 12:30 p.m. in the Kinesiology-Convocation Building. He is the fourth featured author in the “Reading the Globe: the TAMIU Freshmen Experience.”

Reifenberg wrote “Santiago’s Children: What I Learned About Life at an Orphanage in Chile” (University of Texas Press), the book chosen for this year’s selected reading. It has also been selected as Laredo’s One City, One Book title.

In his book, Reifenberg recalls the two years he spent in the early 1980s working at a small orphanage, Domingo Savio, in a poor neighborhood in Santiago, Chile. At the time, Chile was in the midst of economic crisis and political uprising against the brutal military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Widespread human rights violations and political oppression left behind many orphans.

Reifenberg tells not only his own coming-of-age story, but also that of the orphans he fostered.

He is currently the executive director at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Reifenberg is a graduate of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he earned a Master in Public Policy. He also holds a master’s in journalism from Boston University and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.

Reifenberg’s prentation is made possible in part by Humanities Texas. For more information, please contact Dr. Hayley D. Kazen, instructor, University College, at hkazen@tamiu.edu or 326.2805 or visit offices in University Success Center 223E.

University office hours are 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday – Friday.

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