José Antonio Burciaga

José Antonio "Tony" Burciaga (* 1940 ; died October 7, 1996 ) was a Chicano artist, poet and writer who dealt with topics of Chicano identity and American society.

Live and act

In 1960 Burciaga joined the US Air Force. After a year in Iceland (writing was part of his duties) he was transferred to Zaragoza in Spain and stayed there for three years. During this time he discovered the work of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca .

After completing his military service, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at El Paso and began working as a graphic designer and illustrator, initially in Mineral Wells, Texas (he later wrote about this in one of his Hispanic Link -columns titled Mineral Wells (Near and Distant Memory ), then in Washington, DC There he joined the Chicano movement and met Cecilia Preciado, whom he married in 1972.

So that Cecilia could work at Stanford University, the couple moved to California. Burciaga began writing reviews and columns for local newspapers and magazines. In 1985 he became a freelancer for the Hispanic Link column , which appeared in several newspapers, and for the Pacific News Service.

On 5 May 1984, he founded together with Marga Gomez, Monica Palacios, Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza in the premises of the Galería de la Raza in the Mission District of San Francisco, the Latino theater troupe Culture Clash (in German as: clash of Cultures ). During this time Tony and Cecilia Burciaga lived near Stanford University . Cecilia worked there as Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs and Assistant to the President (the President as Director of the Office of Chicano Affairs). In these roles she became active in the formation and support of the Stanford Chicano community. This included, for example, the establishment of El Centro Chicano , a center for Chicano / Latino students. Tony Burciaga continued to work as a writer and graphic artist.

In 1986 Tony and Cecilia became Resident Fellows at Casa Zapata , a Chicano-themed student residence where approximately half of the residents were Chicano students. Tony, Cecilia and their two children lived in a small apartment there. Various Chicano and Latino educational events were held in the dormitory; it was known for its tradition of modern Mexican wall painting ("Muralismo"). Burciaga created numerous wall paintings together with student residents of Casa Zapata. The best known is the critically acclaimed Last Supper of Chicano Heros (in German: The last supper of the Chicano heroes ). The students living in the dormitory had filled out a form in which they had entered who they considered to be one of these heroes and Burciaga placed them at the table according to the tradition of the Last Supper. These included César Chávez , Juana Inés de la Cruz , Ignacio Zaragoza , Che Guevara , Martin Luther King, Jr., and others. The picture is part of a large mural entitled The Story of Corn . The Burciagas were Resident Fellows until 1994.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Burciaga became increasingly successful as a book author. The essay collections Weedee Peepo (1988), Drink Cultura (1993), and Spilling the Beans (1995) treated social problems with a bilingual mixture of wisdom and spirit. With the volume of poetry Undocumented Love from 1992 he won the American Book Award .

Burciaga has spoken at numerous social justice events in the San Francisco Bay Area including East Palo Alto , Redwood City and San Jose . Burciaga took part in charity activities for social projects and political protests, including those that protested against anti-immigration referendums, such as California Proposition 187, as well as other attempts of this kind to enforce English as the sole language.

In 1995, Burciaga, who was recovering from cancer at the time, received the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature .

When Burciaga died on October 7, 1996, he had been working on his first novel, which was about a group of friends who grew up in El Paso, Texas. The novel was published posthumously in 1997 under the title In Few Words / En Pocas Palabras: A Compendium of Latino Folk Wit and Wisdom .

Burciaga's success as a muralist (wall painter), poet, journalist and comedian was based on his versatility and his virtuoso use of language. He wrote Spanish and English and combined both languages, engaging in social criticism and expressing a deep sense of alienation. Francisco Lomelí and Donaldo Urioste said in their review (De Colores, 1977) of Restless Serpents (1976) that his poetry was “powered by an incisive sense of irony with the purpose of criticizing set or ignored truths .... His critical approach becomes effective because his attacks avoid demagogic or abstract declarations. ”(in German for example: (Burciaga) is permeated with a strong sense of irony, criticizing prejudice and the suppression of prejudices. ... His critical approach draws effectiveness from avoidance of demagogic or abstract pronouncements.)

Characteristic of Burciaga as a writer was his humor, with which he satirically portrayed a system in which the traditions of racism and discrimination remained alive. With a few exceptions, he dealt with decidedly political and social issues, including early militant poems by z. B. Ricardo Sánchez, Abelardo Barrientos Delgado and Raymundo "Tigre" Pérez took up. However, Burciaga wrote more nuanced than the latter two and avoided the cutting sarcasm and provocative negligence of Sánchez in the field of language.

Publications

• RESTLESS SERPENTS (1976) -book
• “La Verdad es que Me Canso” (1976) - poem
• "It's the Same Guy" (1977) - poem
• Rio Grande, Rio Bravo (1978) - Short Story
• Romantic Nightmare (1978) - Short Story
• “Smelda and Rio Grande” (1978) - poem
• "Pasatiempos and There's a Vulture" (1978) - poem
• "World Premiere" (1978) - poem
• "Ghost Riders" (1978) - poem
• "To Mexico with Love" (1978) - poem
• Drink cultura: Chicanismo - Essays, Odell Ed., Santa Barbara 1993, ISBN 1-877741-07-8
• Españotli Titlan Englishic (1980) - Short Story
• El Corrido de Pablo Ramírez (1980) - Short Story
• “Letanía en Caloacute” (1980) - poem
• "Dear Max and Without Apologies" (1980) - poem
• "The Care Package" (1980) - poem
• Versos Para Centroamérica (1981) - Novel
• "I Remember Masa" (1981) - poem
• "For Emmy" (1981) - poem
• Sammyy los Del Tercer Barrio (1983) - Short Story
• La Sentencia (1984) - Short Story
• "El Retefemenismo and El Juan Cuéllar de San Jo" (1984) - poem
• WEEDEE PEEPO: A Collection of Essays (1988) - Bay
• Undocumented Love / Amor Indocumentado: A Personal Anthology of Poetry , Chusma House Publ., San Jose, Calif. 1992, ISBN 0-9624536-3-3 - book
• DRINK CULTURA: Chicanismo (1993) - book
• Spilling the beans: lotería chicana , Odell Ed., Santa Barbara 1995, ISBN 1-877741-11-6
• In Few Words / En Pocas Palabras: A Compendium of Latino Folk Wit and Wisdom , a bilingual collection edited by Carol & Thomas Christensen, Mercury House, San Francisco 1997, ISBN 1-56279-093-5 - book
• Colors on desert walls: the murals of El Paso , with Miguel Juárez, Miguel and Cynthia Weber Farah, Texas Western Pr., El Paso, Texas 1997, ISBN 0-87404-236-4

• "The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes: The Selected Works of Jose Antonio Burciaga", edited by Mimi Gladstein and Daniel Chacón, 2008

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hispanic Heritage Awards for Literature . Hispanic Heritage Foundation. Retrieved January 11, 2011.

Web links

• José Antonio Burciaga (1940–1996) Cal-State Northridge, Culture Clash website, accessed August 5, 2017
• José Antonio Burciaga Galeria de la Raza