Americo Paredes: In His Own Words, an Authorized Biography

5. A Professor of Legendary Status

75 Throughout his professional life, Américo Paredes received numerous awards. He responded to the accolades with his usual dignity, but Vince remembered that his father never talked about the importance of an award. The Order of the Aztec Eagle was significant, but he saw it more as an opportunity to be heard. There was one recognition that he especially valued, however. Near the end of his life on November 26, 1998, he was given a tribute in his hometown at his first college, Brownsville Junior College, now The University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College. Paredes was proud to be from Brownsville and he was proud to be recognized by the college that he attended. In that sense, he was happy to receive the award.140 Vince remembered, “my father was a teacher first, then a scholar . He might not have separated those in his mind because he was teaching people to be scholars. Those things weren’t separated. He presented his whole self to everybody and his family. He was the same person to me and his colleagues.”141 In the 1960s, his scholarly research produced numerous articles, reviews, and books. It also gave him enough institutional leverage to found the Center for Mexican American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin in 1970. Américo Paredes was a professor extraordinaire. Although he was one of the most demanding instructors on campus, students filled his classes. An examination of two of Paredes’ syllabi document the Chapter฀five A฀ProFessor฀oF฀legendAr y฀stAtus 76 Américo฀PAredes rigor of his courses. One of the many courses he taught was Materials and Methods of Folklore Research, a survey of folklore theory and method from the 1700s to the present. The required reading included five textbooks and four reports. The course was organized into weekly seminars for which the topics were coordinated by a class member who was required to have a comprehensive command of the subject under discussion. Additionally, the students were required to write twelve papers of at least five pages in length on weekly topics and a fifteen-page paper critiquing a recently published book on folklore. Oral presentations focusing on the research were also required. The graduate syllabus for his folklore classes clearly indicated his substantial expectations for folklore majors and anthropology students who had a concentration in the area of folklore. His Reference Tools section (bibliographies, catalogs, dictionaries, and journals ) numbered 47 pages. That was followed by a detailed section on Theory and Method, including texts, essays, articles, history of folkloristic thought, and fieldwork. The following section on genres included everything from religion, curing, and magic to folktales, myths, songs, riddles, and proverbs. Paredes expected his students to master the information and to be able to articulate in both oral and written form.142 Throughout his lengthy teaching career, Paredes taught thousands of students from the United States and abroad. Many remembered him for his knowledge but many remembered him for his dedication beyond the classroom. One letter dated June 27, 1971, was from a young artist named Carmen Lomas Garza, who was requesting information from Américo. Garza was working on an altar project and about to transfer from Texas A & I University in Kingsville , Texas, to The University of Texas at Austin. She wrote, I am trying to look for materials that will help me specifically with material art rather than oral art. From your paper “Suggestions,” I have picked out a few books that I will try to get from the A & I library… I 77 A฀ProFessor฀oF฀legendAr y฀stAtus would like more suggestions for more books, articles, etc. that will help me with this project…. . Now it is important that I finish this work, hoping that it will help me become a better person, thus a better artist.143 His expectations increased considerably for his graduate students . At times his comments about their work seemed unrelenting. On June 23, 1982, he sent a letter to doctoral student Jim McNutt about his study on folklorists of the Southwest and what Américo criticized as a lack of objectivity. In his dissertation McNutt used J. Frank Dobie’s criticism of the grammar in a corrido stanza. Paredes pointed out that Dobie “was wrong on even more fundamental grounds” apparently thinking that gente was the subject of junto and estuvieron, “but that was not the case. There are many examples...