Curated by Julia Coppedge, student in the School of Information and Graduate Research Assistant at the Benson Latin American Collection Library

The UT Poetry Center at the PCL has a new exhibit up for the fall semester! This exhibit, entitled “Women of the Texas Mexican Earth” features the works of Tejana poets and is meant to honor the great literary contributions of these Texas-Mexican mujeres. In the context of this exhibit, “Tejana” refers to a woman of Mexican descent who was either born and raised in Texas, or was born elsewhere and eventually came to know Texas (even for a little while) as her home.

Poets like Carmen Tafolla, Sonia Saldívar-Hull, Celeste Guzman Mendoza, and Ariana Brown were born and raised in San Antonio, while poets Liliana Valenzuela, Sandra Cisneros, and Angela De Hoyos are “adopted” Tejanas, and have lived in both the U.S. and Mexico. As Tejana scholars, Inés Hernández-Ávila and Norma Elia Cantú proposed “the reach of Tejas,” or Tejana cultural work, extends far beyond the South region of Texas, into Austin, San Antonio, Chicago, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and to “wherever there are Tejanas.”

The title of this exhibition comes from Inés Hernández-Ávila’s introductory essay to Entre Guadalupe y Malinche: Tejanas in Literature and Art, an anthology that was instrumental to this project’s conceptualization.

Exhibit Details
Women of the Texas Mexican Earth
On View through December 9
UFCU Room (PCL 2.500), Perry-Castañeda Library
Poster artwork by Isabel Ann Castro, @queenoftacostx