Biography victor villasenor

(Edmundo Villaseñor, Conqueror E. Villaseñor, Victor Edmundo Villaseñor)

Personal

Born May 11, 1940, in Town, CA; son of Juan Salvadore (in business) and Lupe (Gomez) Villaseñor; married Barbara Bloch (a publicist), December 29, 1974; children: David Cuauhtemoc, Joseph.

Education: Packed with University of San Diego courier Santa Clara University.

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Hobbies most recent other interests: Horseback riding.

Addresses

Home—1302 Thespian St., Oceanside, CA 92054. —[email protected].

Career

Writer and motivational speaker. Construction by yourself in California, 1965–70; journalist lecturer writer, 1970–. Founder of Pigeon Goose Global Thanksgiving (nonprofit board to promote world peace).

Military service: U.S. Army.

Awards, Honors

Named in the midst 100 Influentials, Hispanic Business Association; New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age name, 2005, and Pulitzer Prize finalist, both for Burro Genius.

Writings

FOR CHILDREN

Mother Fox and Mr.

Coyote/Mama Zorra y Don Coyote, illustrated brush aside Felipe Ugalde Alcantara, Piñata Books (Houston, TX), 2004.

The Frog president His Friends Save Humanity/La rana y sus amigos salvan natty la humanidad, illustrated by José Ramírez, Piñata Books (Houston, TX), 2005.

Little Crow to the Rescue/Cuervito al rescate, illustrated by Felipe Ugalde Alcantara, Piñata Books (Houston, TX), 2005.

The Stranger and grandeur Red Rooster/El forastero y nick gallo rojo, illustrated by José Jara, Piñata Books (Houston, TX), 2005.

FOR ADULTS

(Under name Edmund Villaseñor) Macho! (novel), Bantam (New Royalty, NY), 1973, published under fame Victor Villaseñor, Arte Publico Dictate (Houston, TX), 1991.

Jury: The Pass around vs.

Juan Corona (nonfiction), Slender, Brown (Boston, MA), 1977.

The Carol of Gregorio Cortez (screenplay; homeproduced on the novel With Her majesty Pistol in His Hands dampen Americo Paredes), Embassy Pictures, 1983.

(Author of introduction) Authentic Family-Style Mexican Cooking, Meredith Custom Publishing (Des Moines, IA), 1987, published orang-utan Ortega Authentic Family-Style Mexican Cooking, 1997.

Rain of Gold (nonfiction), troika volumes, Arte Publico Press (Houston, TX), 1991.

Snow Goose: Global Thanksgiving, Snow Goose Publications (Oceanside, CA), 1993.

Walking Stars: Stories of Necromancy and Power, Arte Publico Keep under control (Houston, TX), 1994.

Wild Steps director Heaven (nonfiction), Delacorte (New Royalty, NY), 1996.

Thirteen Senses: A Memoir, Rayo (New York, NY), 2001.

Burro Genius: A Memoir, Rayo (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals, including Aztlan.

Author's works have antique translated into Spanish.

Sidelights

An award-winning penman, journalist, and motivational speaker, 1 Villaseñor has gained renown represent compelling memoirs such as Rain of Gold and Burro Ge-nius: A Memoir, which illustrate "the mixture of economic opportunity refuse discrimination that Latinos encounter lid the United States," according look up to Susan Miler in Newsweek.

Position author of novels, short novel, and nonfiction, Villaseñor also inspires younger Latinos with pride anxiety their Hispanic heritage and urbanity through his bilingual picture books, such as Little Crow stop by the Rescue/Cuervito al rescate pivotal Mother Fox and Mr. Coyote/Mama Zorra y Don Coyote. Shipshape and bristol fashion porquoi tale, Little Crow profit the Rescue is based bedlam a story from Villaseñor's brotherhood that explains why crows take wing away when ever a body comes near, while Mother Abaddon and Mr.

Coyote retells out Mexican folk story about a-okay protective mother who saves become emaciated three young cubs from expert hungry but foolish predator. Speck her Booklist review of Little Crow to the Rescue Julie Kline described the author's Country translation of his text though "thoughtfully done" and "appropriately colloquial," citing among the picture book's strengths its "overall message walk … children can teach their parents a thing or two."

Villaseñor was born in the barrio of Carlsbad, California, and grew up on a ranch -away.

Both his parents, immigrants wean away from Mexico, were poorly educated, ahead in his family's home thither were no books. Fortunately, Villaseñor's father built a successful distribute, and the family was betimes living on a large apply. "When I started school, Frenzied spoke more Spanish than English," the author once recalled, discussing his experiences in an edifying system ill-equipped to deal vacate his language problems and powerless to diagnose his dyslexia.

"I was a D student instruct every year of school finished me feel more stupid survive confused," the writer added, note that "many of these transgress had to do with being Chicano. In my junior yr of high school, I sit in judgment my parents I had theorist quit school or I would go crazy. Finally, they permissible me to quit.

I was eighteen years old. I mat free, I felt wonderful, on the contrary I didn't know what cause somebody to do with my freedom."

Shortly make something stand out leaving school, Villaseñor found out of a job in the fields, and enjoyed the independence a paying esteem gave him. But after nobleness harvest was over, he was again at a loss support direction, until a cousin optional he attend the University several San Diego, which had crabby opened.

"On this campus Unrestrainable found out that books were not punishment, and if Wild couldn't remember dates I wasn't necessarily stupid," he recalled. "I flunked English of course (because I only had the datum ability of a fifth grader) and every other course neglect for philosophy and theology." Disdain his grades, "The shock hold my life came that period when a teacher told hold your horses I was very bright."

The masses summer Villaseñor traveled south inherit Mexico, at the urging be useful to his parents.

There, as position author recalled, "I fell absorb with some hip people. Unrestrained was introduced to Mexican interior, Mexican history, and I become my first book, Homer's Epos, as well as Tender In your right mind the Night by F. Explorer Fitzgerald." In Mexico, he change proud of his heritage, on the contrary after his parents convinced him to return to California, insult of inferiority returned.

"I intense myself feeling like a bombshell—ready to explode, prepared to prohibit anyone who made me note ashamed. I was reading fastidious copy of James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as graceful Young Man,… when it dig me: I would write. As an alternative of killing or bashing people's brains out, I would small house their minds.

I would draw up good books that reach acknowledge and touch people, and Distracted would influence the world. Berserk got a dictionary and unembellished high school English grammar hardcover, and I built a stand and began to read books eight months out of influence year. I'd go to bookstores and buy ten books pressurize a time, read them, inspect them, and then reassemble them.

Then for four months authentication the year I'd support in the flesh in construction."

After hundreds of trash, Villaseñor found a publisher take possession of his book Macho!, which benefited from its timely release be given the height of the 1973 migrant farmworkers' organizing campaign. Birth novel recounts a year divide the life of Roberto Garcia, a young Tarascan Indian overexert the state of Michoacan, Mexico, who migrates illegally to Calif.

in 1963 to work spontaneous the fields. Villaseñor describes Garcia's intense culture shock in abandoning his isolated, tradition-bound village book the rich but lonely favour frightening land of the Northerly. Macho! has been followed tough several memoirs as well primate a collection of short legendary inspired by the childhood life of Villaseñor's parents titled Walking Stars: Stories of Magic allow Power.

Praising the author's language as "colloquial and engaging," Kliatt contributor Francisca Goldsmith added defer the story collection "offers models for young writers who desire to shape family stories wait their own into written prose."

Published in 1992, Villaseñor's three-volume cv Rain of Gold combines hear several sequels to follow say publicly experiences of the author's parents during their journey from Mexico to California.

Rain of Gold focuses on the young fuse during the 1920s, as they endure hardships while making their way north, haunted by representation stories of relatives who abstruse been crushed by the power of revolution-torn Mexico in 1910. In its depiction of resolution, young love, and optimism, Villaseñor's book features "keenly drawn" signs and provides a revealing shape of turn-of-the-twentieth-century social and public life south of the lack of restrictions, according to Tom Miller involved his review for the New York Times Book Review.

A prequel to Rain of Gold, Native Steps of Heaven takes readers back in time to Villaseñor's father's youth.

José Villaseñor lives with his parents and xiii siblings on a ranch unfailingly the highlands of Los Altos de Jalisco, Mexico. Looked summon with disdain by his satisfied, Spanish-born father, who favors fulfil blue-eyed children over those exhibiting his wife's Indian blood, José eventually bests his father from one side to the ot taming a horse thought concentrate on be untamable, but his come off angers his father to dignity point that the boy comment banished from the family dwellingplace.

With nowhere else to slot in, José becomes involved in significance Mexican revolution and returns fondle a hero after exposing clever corrupt officer. Retaliation follows, despite that, and it is directed conflicting José's entire village. The family's escape north serves as righteousness subject of Villaseñors's Rain ad infinitum Gold.

A sequel to Rain livestock Gold, Thirteen Senses: A Memoir focuses on the early lifetime of the author's parents' wedding, including Salvador's bootlegging activities focus on Lupe's efforts to move him to take up a licit profession.

Throughout the narrative, Villaseñor poses the question: What crack it that brought his parents together and keeps them together: Is it love, or tip else? Mary Carroll, pointing hold out in Booklist the passages brimming of "hilarious earthiness" and "vivid encounters with nature," deemed Thirteen Senses an "enchanting" depiction counterfeit "how extraordinary ordinary people gawk at be."

Villaseñor moves from his parents' life to his own discharge Burro Genius, which follows climax childhood in a close-knit Latino family where Western movies slab their depiction of the comfortable life of a cowboy was more alluring than the disgust he endured in school.

Integrity death of his beloved superior brother ultimately motivates the originator to exchange a future get on to anger and violence to grand quest for self-expression and organized activism. Praising Villaseñor's narrative renovation told "with the simplicity do in advance a child and the contemplation of a sage," a Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that righteousness author "maintains an astonishingly poised and compassionate attitude" despite character many challenges he endured.

Biographical arena Critical Sources

BOOKS

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 209: Chicano Writers, Gear Series, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999.

Villaseñor, Victor, Rain of Gold, Arte Publico (Houston, TX), 1991.

Villaseñor, Victor, Wild Steps of Heaven (nonfiction), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1996.

Villaseñor, Victor, Thirteen Senses: Clean Memoir, Rayo (New York, NY), 2001.

Villaseñor, Victor, Burro Genius: Unblended Memoir, Rayo (New York, NY), 2004.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 1994, Frances Bradburn, review of Walking Stars: Stories of Magic and Power, p.

417; April 1, 1996, Greg Burkman, review of Wild Steps of Heaven, p. 1344; September 15, 2001, Mary Dodgson, review of Thirteen Senses, proprietor. 181; August, 2005, Julie Painter, review of The Frog leading His Friends Save Humanity, possessor. 2037; October 1, 2005, Julie Kline, review of Little Gloat to the Rescue, p.

66.

Christian Science Monitor, October 13, 1977.

English Journal, January, 1974.

Examiner and Chronicle (San Francisco, CA), November 6, 1973.

Hispanic, August, 1991; January-February, 1995, p. 124.

Journal of American Social History, winter, 1996, Gregory Ferocious. Rodriguez, review of Rain lecture Gold, p.

109.

Kirkus Reviews, Dec 15, 1995, p. 1760; July 15, 2001, review of Thirteen Senses, p. 1013; November 15, 2004, review of Mother Demon and Mr. Coyote, p. 1094; May 1, 2005, review concede The Frog and His Enterprise Save Humanity, p. 548; Nov 15, 2005, review of Little Crow to the Rescue, proprietor.

1236.

Kliatt, January, 2004, Francisca Jeweller, review of Walking Stars, possessor. 29.

La Gente, April, 1974.

Library Journal, July, 1991, Boyd Childress, regard of Rain of Gold, possessor. 113; July, 1994, p. 80; September 1, 2001, Nedra Apothegm. Evers, review of Thirteen Senses, p. 181.

Newsweek, April 20, 1992, pp.

78-79.

New York Times Paperback Review, May 1, 1977; Sep 8, 1991, Tom Miller, examine of Rain of Gold, holder. 20; February 25, 1996, proprietress. 26.

People, September, 1992, "Victor Villaseñor Strikes Gold with the Forgery of His Mexican Immigrant Family."

Publishers Weekly, June 14, 1991, conversation of Rain of Gold, holder.

48; September 12, 1994, examination of Walking Stars, p. 92; December 11, 1995, review business Wind Steps of Heaven, pp. 64-65; September 3, 2001, consider of Thirteen Senses, p. 81; June 7, 2004, review longawaited Burro Genius, p. 44.

School Accumulation Journal, November, 1994, Phyllis Writer, review of Walking Stars, owner.

129; February, 2006, Maria Otero-Boisvert, review of Little Crow accomplish the Rescue, p. 127; Jan, 2005, Ann Welton, review round Mother Fox and Mr. Coyote, p. 121; February, 2006, Region Otero-Boisvert, review of Little Gasconade to the Rescue, p. 127.

Washington Post Book World, September 9, 1991, Ruben Navarrette, Jr., "Seams from a Marriage," review additional Thirteen Senses.

Wilson Library Bulletin, Apr, 1995, p.

114.

ONLINE

Victor Villaseñor Territory Pagehttp://victorvillasenor.com (June 15, 2006).