by David Monroe
News ReporterWith its extremely successful "Literature Touring Initiative," Art Pþblico Press is keeping the Mexican-American heritage alive.
The tour, sponsored by the Texas Commission of the Arts, allows students from Texas and across the United States to experience Mexican-American writing.
"Promoting Hispanic literature is the main focus of this project," said Marina Tristan, assistant director of Art Pþblico Press, a nonprofit publishing company that is part of the University of Houston's Mexican American Studies program.
Tristan arranges for Hispanic authors from all across North and South America to speak at schools, libraries and workshops. Tato Laviera and Sandra Maria Esteves spoke at UH's Blaffer Gallery Feb. 13.
"Art Pþblico is not out to set any specific agenda with the writer's tour; instead, we allow the authors to speak about issues that their audiences can relate to," Tristan said.
Tristan said the tours reach young and old readers, as well as people of varying ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.
Linda Payne-Button, coordinator of Services to the Spanish Speaking at San Antonio Public Library, said, "(Art Pþblico) has given our community exposure to some very wonderful Hispanic literary talent we otherwise would not have been able to afford at our no-budget-for-programs library.
"Last August, we did a program called the `Hispanic Culture Love-In' in several barrios in San Antonio. An Art Pþblico writer, Diane Gonzalez Bertrand, came to four different recreation centers where we targeted teens for writing workshops, using their culture for inspirational writing," she said.
Payne-Button said that Hispanic teen-agers are faced with many troubles in San Antonio.
"We have one of the highest school drop-out rates, one of the highest teen pregnancy rates, one of the highest teen violence rates and one of the highest illiteracy rates in the state of Texas," she said. "But Art Pþblico has helped us tremendously in sending the message to children that it isn't shameful to be Hispanic, that books are great things and that our culture is incredibly rich for future authors of Texas."