Tomás Rivera
Writer, Author
1935 – 1984
Who was Tomás Rivera?
Tomás Rivera was a Chicano author, poet, and educator. He was born in Texas to migrant farm workers, and worked in the fields as a young boy. However, he achieved social mobility through education—earning a degree at Southwest Texas State University, and later a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Oklahoma—and came to believe strongly in the virtues of education for Mexican-Americans.
As an author, Rivera is best remembered for his 1971 Faulknerian stream-of-consciousness novella ...y no se lo tragó la tierra, translated into English variously as This Migrant Earth and as ...and the Earth Did Not Devour Him. This book won the first Premio Quinto Sol award.
Rivera taught in high schools throughout the Southwest USA, and later at Sam Houston State University and the University of Texas at El Paso. From 1979 until his death in 1984, he was the chancellor of the University of California, Riverside, the first Mexican-American to hold such a position at the University of California.
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- Born
- Dec 22, 1935
Crystal City - Also known as
- Tomas Rivera
- Tomás Rivera
- Spouses
- Ethnicity
- Mexican American
- Nationality
- United States of America
- Profession
- Education
- University of Oklahoma
- Texas State University–San Marcos
- Died
- May 16, 1984
Fontana
Submitted
on July 23, 2013
Citation
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"Tomás Rivera." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/tomas_rivera>.
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