Migrant Labor, Gender and Agency:A Conversation With Helena Maria Viramontes

Helena María Viramontes was born and grew up in East Los Angeles but now lives in Ithaca, NY, where she is on the faculty of Cornell University. Viramontes is the author of two novels, Under the Feet of Jesus (Dutton, 1995), which has gone through twelve printings and was named a Quality Paperback Book of the Month, and the forthcoming Their Dogs Came With Them, as well as a short story collection, The Moths (Arte Público Press, 1985). She has co-edited two texts on Chicana writers and her own work has been translated into Hindi, German and Spanish. Among her other honors, Viramontes is a recipient of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in fiction, and a Breadloaf Fellow. This event will focus on her novel Under the Feet of Jesus.