Premio Quinto Sol

Quinto Sol was the first fully independent publishing house to surface from the Chicano movement in the Sixties. Editorial Quinto Sol (Quinto Sol Publications) was founded in 1967 at UC Berkeley by Octavio I. Romano, a Professor of Behavioral Science and Public Health, in collaboration with Nick C. Vaca and Andres Ybarra. The name “Quinto Sol” is Spanish for "Fifth Sun" and it refers to the Aztec myth of creation and destruction. Since the beginning of the Chicano movement in the 1960s, this concept has become a pathway to cultural expression. The Fifth Sun has constantly been integrated into the music, art and literature of the Chicano idea.

The goals of the publication house included "cultural unity and self-determination" and the publishing house, its authors, and the works they produced were centrally important in the Chicano Movement in the 1970s. Aiming to create an academic and literary outlet for Chicano voices, it originated from the movement’s need of an unbiased artistic venue for Mexican American authors. Literary nationalism was, after all, the driving cultural force behind “El Movimiento” (Chicano Movement) at the end of the 1960s

Beginning in 1967, Quinto Sol published the interdisciplinary El Grito: A Journal of Contemporary Mexican-American Thought. This was the first national academic and literary journal ever published in the United States. The journal, whose name is Spanish for "the Shout," was "intended to raise awareness at what we could call a pan-Chicano/a nationalistic level". Considered an intellectual and independent critical space, it became a place where Chicano(a) scholars, authors and artists could work to debunk the “culture of poverty” and other negative stereotypes attributed to Mexican Americans by scientists, other literature works and the media. As the editorial developed, the journal was used to expand Chicano expression and self-definition.

The authors published in El Grito drew attention to the biases in academic realms regarding Mexican-Americans and attempted to rectify these blind spots. Quinto Sol released Voices: Readings from El Grito: A Journal of Contemporary Mexican-American Thought, which was a compilation of the most important works published in the journal. A second expanded edition of Voices was published two years later. The texts became an important resource for those wanting to learn about the newly instituted discipline of Chicano Studies. El Grito also published advertisements geared towards high schools and other university departments to stress the importance of Quinto Sol materials in the classroom. Finally, in 1969, Quinto Sol released the first edition of El espejo--The Mirror, the first anthology of Mexican-American literature.

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