{"id":9949,"date":"2019-03-08T18:56:50","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T18:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=9949"},"modified":"2019-03-08T18:56:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T18:56:50","slug":"they-call-me-guero-utrgv-literature-professor-celebrates-mexican-american-culture-and-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=9949","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They Call Me G\u00fcero\u2019: UTRGV Literature Professor Celebrates Mexican-American Culture and Youth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dr. David Bowles, an associate professor in the UTRGV Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies, grew up in the Rio Grande Valley with the nickname \u201cG\u00fcero,\u201d granted from his father\u2019s Mexican-American heritage. Now, he bestows it on the protagonist of his newest book, \u2018They Call Me G\u00fcero,\u2019 a novel in verse filled with slice-of-life poems illustrating life as a border kid. The book recently earned a 2019 Tomas Rivera Book Award, as well as the 2019 Walter Dean Myers Awards for Outstanding Children\u2019s Literature. It has been named a Pura Belpr\u00e9 Author Honor Book and made the School Library Journal 2018 Best Books List Honor, Middle Grade. It was named a National Council of Teachers of English Notable Verse Novel for Children 3-13, and an ALSC Notable Children\u2019s Book, 2019, and was named a Shelf Awareness 2018 Best Children\u2019s & Teen Books of the Year, Middle Grade. Photo: Paul Chouy\/UTRGV<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

by Priscilla Ramirez<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
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RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0Spanish-speakers often refer to a person with light hair, eyes and complexion as \u201cg\u00fcero\u201d \u2013 a term of endearment free of cultural or racial overtones.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Dr. David Bowles, an associate professor in the\u00a0UTRGV Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies<\/a>,\u00a0grew up \u201chalf-and-half\u201d in the Rio Grande Valley\u00a0with the nickname granted from his father\u2019s Mexican-American heritage.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Now, he bestows it on the protagonist of his newest book, \u201cThey Call Me G\u00fcero,\u201d a novel in verse filled with slice-of-life poems that illustrate life as a border kid \u2013 something\u00a0430,000 children in the Valley<\/a>\u00a0can relate to.<\/div>\n
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\u201cYoung kids have to realize that we have wonderful things to celebrate and we should feel pride in it,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cWe are worthy of being written about and our lives contain poetry. We need to look in the mirror and see we are beautiful.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Children should be able to read a different perspective in lives like their own, he says. His book tackles the issue of single-faceted archetypes, especially\u00a0machismo\u00a0(exaggerated masculinity)\u00a0forced onto Latino boys, and comes up often during his visits to schools across the Valley.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI tell students it\u2019s OK to be\u00a0travieso\u00a0(mischievous), it doesn\u2019t make you a bad person,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to give boys permission to be as complex as they want to be. G\u00fcero is more of a soft boy \u2013 he\u2019s not a fighter. His girlfriend does the fighting for him, and that\u2019s OK, too. There\u2019s nothing wrong with admiring strong women and seeing them as role models.\u201d<\/div>\n
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In preparation for writing G\u00fcero\u2019s voice, Bowles pulled from his family experiences growing up in the Valley and molded it with his son\u2019s life. The result blends the English and Spanish languages with a blend of regional traditions and modern ideals.<\/div>\n
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The focus was not in teaching a moral lesson, but to paint a picture of everyday life in the Valley. Each poem is a vignette into the culture and acts as homage to the uniqueness of the Rio Grande Valley, especially the importance of family and friends.<\/div>\n
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\u201cBringing all these elements from my own family into tighter focus helped me to appreciate my love for my family,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cOnce you get to a certain age, you lose people, and writing about a young boy helps me remember them and hear their voices more clearly. It was like revisiting my own childhood.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Bowles believes that tackling an important issue like cultural identity is essential in today\u2019s climate. His passion for positive recognition for the Valley and the expression of Hispanic culture were his love letter to South Texas.<\/div>\n
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\u201cPeople on the outside look at Mexican-Americans and don\u2019t understand us or our culture and are afraid of it,\u201d he said. \u201cI want a book about us to be in the hands of kids, so they understand what it\u2019s like to be a Mexican-American kid and see how wonderful it is.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cThey Call Me G\u00fcero\u201d recently was awarded a\u00a02019 Tomas Rivera Book Award<\/a>, but that\u2019s not the first acknowledgment for the book. Bowles, and \u201cG\u00fcero,\u201d have earned multiple accolades recently for excellence in poetry:<\/div>\n
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    \n
  • Pura Belpr\u00e9 Author Honor Book.<\/li>\n
  • 2019 Walter Dean Myers Awards for Outstanding Children\u2019s Literature.<\/li>\n
  • School Library Journal 2018 Best Books List Honor, Middle Grade.<\/li>\n
  • National Council of Teachers of English Notable Verse Novel for Children 3-13.<\/li>\n
  • ALSC Notable Children\u2019s Book, 2019.<\/li>\n
  • Shelf Awareness 2018 Best Children\u2019s & Teen Books of the Year, Middle Grade.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    <\/div>\n
    As a literature professor, Bowles believes that works for children can also be beneficial to adults, as a refresher to a more innocent way of thinking and encourages adults to enjoy younger readers.<\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
    \u201cIt\u2019s nice to win awards, but what I really want is for people to read it and to understand, and to look up to G\u00fcero as someone who greets the world with open arms,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cWe have misconceptions about what literature is and divorce ourselves from the wide-eyed and clear-headed way of looking at the world.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    by Priscilla Ramirez RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS \u2013\u00a0Spanish-speakers often refer to a person with light hair, eyes and complexion as \u201cg\u00fcero\u201d \u2013 a term of endearment free of cultural or racial overtones. Dr. David Bowles, an associate professor in the\u00a0UTRGV Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies,\u00a0grew up \u201chalf-and-half\u201d in the Rio Grande Valley\u00a0with the nickname […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-valley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9950,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9949\/revisions\/9950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}