A Tardeada with Juan Tejeda: Mi Carnal Frank

Join MACRI and the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center at the Guadalupe's Latino Bookstore for a book reading, discussion, and musical presentation with Juan and Armando Tejeda. Learn the story of U.S. Congressman Frank Mariano Tejeda Jr., an advocate for justice and one of the most influential Mexican American politicians in San Antonio and Texas. This is the subject of Juan Tejeda’s new book, MI CARNAL FRANK/A FAMILY MEMOIR AND BIOGRAPHY OF U.S. CONGRESSMAN FRANK MARIANO TEJEDA JR. 1945-1997.

NOTE: This event is at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s Latino Bookstore at 1300 Guadalupe Street, San Antonio, TX 78207.

MACRI's programs are funded in part by the City of San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture, Bexar County, the Mellon Foundation, the John L. Santikos Charitable Foundation Fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation, Wells Fargo, and individual donors like you! To learn more about future MACRI events and how to make a donation, please visit www.somosMACRI.org. Gracias!

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Juan Tejeda retired in 2016 as a professor of Mexican American Studies and Music at Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas. A writer, musician, educator, ex-Jefe Segundo of Xinachtli, arts administrator, and activist, from 1980 to 1998, he was the Xicano Music Program Director at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center where, among his many duties, he founded and directed the annual Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio. He is the button accordionist for the Conjunto Aztlan. He and his wife, Anisa Onofre, are the publishers of Aztlan Libre Press, a small, independent publishing company based in Yanawana dedicated to the publishing, promotion, and free expression of Indigenous/Xicanx literature and art.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Written by his brother, Juan Tejeda, Mi Carnal Frank tells the story of the Tejeda family and Frank’s life from birth to his premature death at age 51. Utilizing interviews with family and close friends, plus 127 photos, documents, and newspaper articles, the book chronicles Frank’s early years being raised by poor Mexicano parents on the southside of San Antonio, through his Marine Corps service and combat duty in Vietnam, college education, and 20-year career as a politician and elected public servant, first as a Texas State Representative, then a Texas Senator and U.S. Congressman. During these twenty years, Frank was a fierce advocate for social, educational, economic, and environmental justice, veterans’ benefits, the rights of the poor and his Mexican American community, and the people he represented. This book also tells the tale of how Frank developed and was the leader of a grassroots political alliance of elected officials in San Antonio known as the “Southside Coalition” (who some called a “political machine,” while others called it the “Brown Mafia”), and in the process became one of the most powerful Mexican American/Chicano politicians that San Antonio and the State of Texas have ever known.