Peregrinos de Aztlan (Pilgrims in Aztlan) | Author Biography

There are so many remarkable things about Miguel Méndez that he himself has, at times, looked into the mirror and wondered who he was. He was born on June 15, 1930, in Bisbee, Arizona, a town that sits on the border between the United States and Mexico. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to El Claro Mexico where his father found work in a government-owned farming community. It was from his father that Méndez would learn the significance of the storyteller. His father’s stories were conveyed to him in the traditional oral style. From his mother, who spoke both Spanish and English, Méndez would receive his love of language and reading.

Miguel Mendez
Miguel Mendez

Méndez attended school only through the sixth grade. This fact might have restricted someone with less determination, but Méndez used this circumstance to inspire himself to conquer the use of language. Throughout his years of working as a hired hand picking fruit and vegetables in the desert lands along the American-Mexican border, Méndez wrote prodigiously. He completed his first novel when he was only eighteen years old. During his years of farm work, he was to meet many of the characters that would people his future novels.

The borderland between the United States and Mexico has been the setting not only of Méndez’s novels but also of his life. In 1946, he settled in Tucson, Arizona, where he became a bricklayer, a profession that he would practice for the next twenty-four years. He continued writing during this time. With the advent of the popularity of Chicano literature in the 1960s, he published his first short story after fifteen years of writing.

Méndez writes his stories in Spanish, his language of choice, and only a few of his works have been translated into English. Méndez prefers writing in Spanish as it better reflects his cultural roots. His profound fascination with language and imagery and his sophisticated writing style make it difficult to translate his works into English.

Until 1970, Méndez continued working in the construction field. He then began teaching Spanish, Hispanic literature, and creative writing at Prima Community College. Méndez also began teaching at the University of Arizona in Tucson. It was during this new transition in his life that Méndez reworked Peregrinos de Aztlán (the title translates as Pilgrims in Aztlán) and eventually had the novel published.

Méndez’s autobiography Entre Letras Ladrillos (the title translates both as Among Letters and Bricks and From Labor to Letters) was published in 1996.