Description
The bulk of this collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts, teaching and subjects materials Arturo Islas kept on
file in his years teaching and writing at Stanford. The collection also includes materials relating Chicano issues, particularly
the Chicano community at Stanford University. Unless indicated as outgoing correspondence, the letters in files are incoming.
Background
Arturo Islas was an English professor at Stanford and an author who explored the Chicano experience of living in two cultures
in his novels. He was born on May 24, 1938 in El Paso, Texas, and left with a Sloan Scholarship and to study at Stanford University
in 1956. He had intended to become a neurosurgeon, but his ambitions in the sciences gave way to his exceptional talents in
literature. Referring to this switch, he once said, So it was that the poor Chicano boy came to teach the Anglos their literature.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1960, and entered the Ph. D. program in the autumn. In
1971, upon completion of his dissertation on Jewish-American novelist Hortense Calisher, Arturo Islas became the first Chicano
in the United States to earn a doctorate in English.
Restrictions
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.