Américo Paredes, the son of Justo and Clotilde (Manzano-Vidal) Paredes, became a journalist, scholar, and artist. Born in 1915 in Brownsville, Texas, he began his journalistic career in the 1930's; he continued to work as a writer and editor for Stars and Stripes during his years in the U.S. Army. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin in 1951 and earned his master's degree there in 1953. He received his doctoral degree from the same institution in 1956 or 1957. A memorial in Contemporary Authors says that he was the first Mexican-American to earn a doctorate at UTA.
Paredes's dissertation was published in 1958 as "With His Pistol in His Hand", a Border Ballad and its Hero. The book became an underground classic and was reprinted nine times. It is the basis for the 1983 PBS film The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, starring Edward James Olmos.
After teaching English briefly at the University of Texas-El Paso (then Texas Western), Paredes began a long career at his alma mater. He taught English but later was appointed to both the English and Anthropology faculties. He was a visiting professor at Berkeley in the 1960's. From 1981-83, he held the Ashbell Smith professorship at UT-Austin and from 1983-85 the Dickson, Allen and Anderson Centennial professorship. He continued in this post as an emeritus professor.
He was the director of the folklore achive at Austin and founded the Center for Intercultural Studies of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. He served one term as secretary of the American Folklore Society. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1962 and received the Charles Frankel Prize from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1989.
His creative writing also won prizes. His poetry won a prize at Trinity University in the 1930's, and his short stories and a novel won prizes in the 1950's. He did not, however, publish his creative works until the 1990's.
Paredes, the father of four, believes that a new sort of culture has sprung up along the border of the Southwestern United States and Mexico because clashes between existing cultures. This understanding of the border, on which he grew up, informs both his scholarly and creative writings.
Before his death in 1995, Paredes received a number of honors, including the Order of the Aztec Eagle from the government of Mexico and a lifetime achievement award from the state of Texas.
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