AUSTIN, TX (March 25, 2003)- ¡A Viva Voz!, a new Latino cultural series, presents its inaugural speaker Pat Mora, distinguished poet, educator, and humanist, on Monday, April 7, 2003. The series, sponsored through the generosity of an anonymous donor and presented by the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, is open to the public.

The reading will be held at 5:00 p.m. in the Rare Books Reading Room of the Benson Collection, Sid Richardson Hall, 1.101, on the east side of campus at the northwest corner of Red River and Clyde Littlefield Drive (formerly Manor Road). A reception follows the reading. Parking is available in Lot 38 adjacent to Sid Richardson Hall.

Since the 1980's, Mora has provided testament of the U.S. Latina voice in American literature. "Ms. Mora's poems are proudly bilingual, an eloquent answer to [those] who refuse to see language as something that lives and changes" (William Ferguson, The New York Times Book Review). Acknowledged as "one of the most significant Chicana poets of our time," she has been a recipient and judge of the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships. She writes poetry, nonfiction and children's books, some of which have been translated into Spanish, French, Italian and Bengali. Her work has entered mainstream American literature in major anthologies and textbooks and in a variety of scholarly and popular publications.

Born in El Paso, Texas, the border city that her grandparents moved to during the Mexican Revolution, Mora reared three children, taught all levels of English and became an administrator at her alma mater, the University of Texas at El Paso. She directed the university's natural history museum and explored ways to help visitors better understand the landscape and peoples of the border.

As a fellow of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation leadership program, she studied cultural conservation-the importance of preserving languages and traditions-in the United States as well as other countries including the Dominican Republic, France, Mexico, Cuba and China. Mora was the Garrey Carruthers Chair in Honors, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of New Mexico in the fall of 1999.

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The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, a unit of the General Libraries, embodies more than seventy-five years of the University of Texas at Austin's commitment to create and maintain a specialized research library dedicated to the culture and history of Latin America. The internationally recognized Benson Latin American Collection acquires and provides access to materials on Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the Hispanic presence in the United States. The Benson Collection is located in Sid Richardson Hall, Unit 1, on the east side of campus at the northwest corner of Red River and Clyde Littlefield Drive (formerly Manor Road).

For more information contact:
Ann Hartness, Head Librarian
Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection (www.lib.utexas.edu/benson/)
General Libraries
hartness@mail.utexas.edu or 512-495-4520
More information on Pat Mora can be found at: www.patmora.com