Norma Elia Cantú

Award-winning author and professor Norma Elia Cantú is a Chicana postmodernist writer and a professor of English and U.S. Latina/o Literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Dr. Cantú has published extensively in folklore and literary studies as well as poetry and fiction.  Her scholarly interests include folklore, Chicana literature, and borderlands studies.

>>  Join me as I ask her what drew her to this area of study and what she continues to enjoy the most about it.

Norma was born in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico and grew up in Laredo, Texas, where she attended public schools.

>>  I’ll be asking her about her growing up in Laredo and her family background.

Prior to her UTSA professorship, Dr. Cantu taught in Laredo at Texas A&M International University.

Norma received her A.A. degree from Laredo Community College in 1970. She received her bachelor of science degree in English and political science from Texas A&M International University in Laredo, from which she graduated summa cum laude in 1973. She received her master of science degree in English with a minor in political science from Texas A&I University-Kingsville in 1976 and her Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1982.

>>  What has been Norma’s career path and what can we learn from her choices?

Dr. Cantú is the editor of a book series, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo: Borderlands Culture and Tradition, at Texas A&M University Press.

Author of the award-winning Canícula Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera (New Mexico, 1995 and 2000), she edited Flor y Ciencia: Chicanas in Mathematics, Science and Engineering (Adelante Project, 2006) and has co-edited Chicana Traditions: Continuity and Change (Illinois, 2002), and Telling to Live: Latina Feminst Testimonios (Duke, 2001).

Norma has just finished a novel, Cabañuelas and is currently working on another novel tentatively titled: Champú, or Hair Matters.

She is also working on an ethnography of the Matachines de la Santa Cruz, a religious dance drama from Laredo, Texas and a collection of poetry.

>>  From the variety of writing that Norma does, what is the common theme?  What is most interesting to her about her projects?

Norma’s presentations include:  Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera, La Quinceañera and Other Latina Life-Cycle Markers and Chicano Literature of the Tejano Borderlands.

Aside from her teaching, writing and speaking commitments, her current passions include getting the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa off and running (www.ssganzaldua.org) and preparing to teach a summer course in Toledo.

>>  I’ll also be asking her about her newest project and what all is involved.

She formerly served as senior arts specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Folk and Traditional Arts Program and as acting director of the Center for Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

She has also served on the boards of the American Folklore Society and the Federation of State Humanities Councils.