Luis alberto urrea biography of michael jordan
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SummerWords welcomes Urrea for keynote speech
Author Luis Alberto Urrea speaks the the crowd at American River College during his keynote speech at SummerWords. (Photo by Jordan Schauberger)
Bestselling author Luis Alberto Urrea gave the keynote speech at American River College’s SummerWords creative writing festival last Saturday, sharing anecdotes from his life before reciting a story entirely from memory.
ARC English professor Michael Spurgeon introduced Urrea, and said that the term “border writer” doesn’t come close to describing Urrea’s work detailing the personal and social impacts of living life on the border between the United States and Mexico.
Urrea, born in Tijuana and raised in San Diego, is famous for his stories about immigrant and “chicano” life, most notably his novel “The Devil’s Highway: A True Story,” the tale of an attempt by 26 men to cross the Mexican border into Arizona. “The Devil’s Highway” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
“He is more interested in bridges than borders,” said Spurgeon. “That is why we wanted to bring him.”
Spurgeon borrowed a popular tagline of Urrea’s to end the speech, saying “Tijuana in the house.”
The end of Spurgeon’s speech was met with standing applause from the crowd, as Urrea
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Family reunions — whether spurred by weddings, funerals, milestone birthdays or just some diligent family organizer — are a staple of fiction. When aging patriarchs, accommodating mothers, quarreling siblings and prodigal sons gather under one roof, they bring both personal baggage and love to the chaos. Resentments and resilience always figure in the action.
In his new novel, “The House of Broken Angels,” Luis Alberto Urrea complicates matters by scheduling both a funeral and a birthday party around the same sprawling family get-together. Urrea — who lives in Naperville — is the author of “The Hummingbird’s Daughter” and “The Devil’s Highway,” for which he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2005.
The 70th birthday of cancer-stricken Miguel Angel de la Cruz (“Big Angel” to his family) has long been in the planning. Friends and relatives already have their travel plans in place and can’t afford to change them. So when Big Angel’s mother dies just short of her 100th birthday a week before the big event, the funeral is held the same weekend.
The time is the present day, the setting is a southside neighborhood of San Diego, and the de la Cruz family’s history straddles both