Américo Paredes

Américo Paredes (September 3, 1915 – May 5, 1999) was a Mexican-American author born in Brownsville, Texas who authored several texts focusing on the border life that existed between the United States and Mexico, particularly around the Rio Grande region of South Texas. His family on his father’s side, however, had been in the Americas since 1580. His ancestors were sefarditas, or Spanish Jews who had been converted to Christianity, and in 1749 - along with Escandon - they settled in the lower Rio Grande. The year of Paredes’ birth was the year of the last Texas Mexican Uprising, which was to portend the life Paredes was to lead. Throughout his long career as a journalist, folklorist and professor, Paredes was to bring focus to his Mexican American heritage, and the beauty of those traditions.

Growing up in Brownsville, Texas, Paredes was to experience the double life of American and Mexican culture. Paredes was a lover both of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan books and of Mexican poetry—his father composed décimas (a ten line poem with set rhyme scheme). This love of poetry was to hold Paredes in good stead when, at the age of 18, he won a poetry contest sponsored by Trinity College. This award was to gain him the attention of the high school principal, Mr. Irvine, who in turn, expedited his entrance into junior college in 1934. The same year Paredes entered college, an event that would mark his life occurred, the assassination of Cesar Augusto Sandino, about whom, five years later, Paredes would write “A Cesar Augusto Sandino.”

While in his second year of junior college, Paredes was also to write George Washington Gomez: A Mexico-Texan Novel. Although it was not published until 1990, George Washington Gomez is Paredes' most well known work. The novel tells the story of a young man growing up in early 20th-century Jonesville on the River (a fictional city Paredes used to represent the city of Brownsville) and reveals the conflict in identity (as the title name suggests) the young man experiences growing up in an Anglo-Texan environment, particularly with regards to the educational system.

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