Yolanda Broyles-González, Professor of Chicano Studies and German Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara,will discuss her bilingual autobiography of a legendary singer, Lydia Mendoza’s Life in Music/La Historia de Lydia Mendoza. NorteñoTtejano Legacies (Oxford University Press, 2001) at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, February 5 in the McCune Conference Room, 6020 Humanities and Social Sciences Building.  Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, Lydia Mendoza’s Life in Music (which includes an audio CD) will be available for purchase and signing at this event.

Book Description:

Lydia Mendoza began her long musical career as a child in the 1920's, singing for pennies and nickels on the streets of downtown San Antonio, Texas. She lived most of her adult life in Houston, Texas, where she was born. The life story of the legendary Lydia Mendoza encompasses a 60-year singing career including innumerable tours, recordings, best-selling hits, and national awards. Her performing career began with the advent of the recording industry in the 1920's and continued into the 1980's, ceasing after she suffered a stroke which ended her performance career. Mendoza has become perhaps the most prominent and long-standing performer within the US-Mexican oral tradition of music. This is a bi-lingual edition: the first is the English translation, then the original Spanish. Yolanda Broyles-González concludes the volume with an extended essay on the significance of Lydia Mendoza's career and her place in tejana music and chicana studies.

Author:

Yolanda Broyles-González is jointly Professor of Chicano Studies and Affiliate Professor of German Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her publications include Re-emerging Native Women of the Americas: Native Chicana Latina Women's Studies (2001) and El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement (1994).

This event is cosponsored by the UCSB Bookstore, Department of Chicano Studies, Women's Center, and Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.