Teresa Palomo Acosta
Personal Information
Description
Teresa Palomo Acosta was born in McGregor, Texas, on March 9, 1949. Her parents, Sabina Palomo Acosta and Andres Alderete Acosta, both came from families of Mexican migrant workers who settled in Central Texas in the 1930s. Acosta is the youngest of four children with two older brothers, Andres and Jesus ("Jesse"), and one older sister, Olivia. In 1974, Acosta graduated from The University of Texas with a bachelor's degree in ethnic studies. In 1977, she received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. Acosta has had a lengthy career as a writer of poetry and fiction. Her first published work, a poem entitled "My Mother Pieced Quilts," appeared in the 1976 anthology Festival de Flor y Canto: An Anthology of Chicano Literature printed by the University of Southern California Press. This poem is among Acosta's most notable works and has been anthologized and republished in secondary school textbooks, bringing her national recognition. Her work takes inspiration from her personal experience as a Mexican American woman from Texas. Throughout her work, as in "My Mother Pieced Quilts," Acosta elevates the domestic Mexican American woman, highlighting a group that has generally been underrepresented in literature and poetry. Acosta also addresses her cultural heritage and identity through her work as a historian. In this capacity, she coauthored the 2003 book Las Tejanas: 300 Years of History with Ruthe Winegarten, an American author, activist, and historian from Dallas, Texas. Las Tejanas focuses on the previously uncelebrated contributions of Mexican American women to Texas history and was the winner of the T.R. Fehrenbach Book Award in 2004. via TARO (less)
Books
Tejanaland
"This collection by Teresa Palomo Acosta -- poet, historian, author, and activist -- spans three decades of her writing, from 1988 through 2018. The collection is divided into four parts: poems, essays, a children's story, and plays. Each work addresses cultural, gender, historical, and political realities that she experienced from her childhood to the present. The plays, set in the Central Texas Blackland Prairies where Acosta was raised, provide a unique Latina vision of memory, identity, and experience and are a vital contribution to Chicana feminist thought. The essays focus on Acosta's literary heroes Jovita Gonza lez Mireles, Sara Estela Rami rez, and Elena Zamora O'Shea, important writers who contributed significantly to Tejana literature and to Texas letters. The children's story, 'Colchas, Colchitas,' is based on Acosta's most notable poem, 'My Mother Pieced Quilts,' which pays homage to her mother and the many women of her generation who employed needles and thread, creating both practical and symbolic artifacts. This collection is a creative and, indeed, essential expansion of boundaries for what we think of as history, offering a unique and compelling look into the lived experiences and interior contemplations of a Texas artist well worth knowing. Readers will increase their understanding of Tejana experience in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Tejanaland promises to become an important addition to the cultural record, informing historical perspectives on the experiences of Tejana women and contributing significantly to the existing body of work from Tejana writers. Teresa Palomo Acosta is cofounder and former vice president of the Ruthe Winegarten Memorial Foundation for Texas Women's History. She is the author of many works of fiction and poetry and is coauthor of Las Tejanas: 300 Years of History. She lives in Austin"--
Las Tejanas
"Teresa Palomo Acosta and Ruthe Winegarten have gathered and distilled a wide range of information to create this important resource. They offer one of the first detailed accounts of Tejanas' lives in the colonial period and from the Republic of Texas up to 1900. Drawing on the fuller documentation that exists for the twentieth century, they also examine many aspects of the modern Tejana experience, including Tejanas' contributions to education, business and the professions, faith and community, politics, and the arts. A large selection of photographs, a historical time line, and profiles of fifty notable Tejanas complete the volume and assure its usefulness for a broad general audience, as well as for educators and historians."--BOOK JACKET.
The United States in Literature [with three long stories] -- Seventh Edition
Selections include: ... - [Young Goodman Brown]( by Nathaniel Hawthorne ... - [An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge]( by Ambrose Bierce ... - [A Pair of Silk Stockings]( by Kate Chopin - [The Cask of Amontillado]( - [Fall of the House of Usher]( - [The Glass Menagerie]( by Tennesse Williams
Prentice Hall Literature--Bronze
Grades 7-9