From labor to letters

the long version

This English translation of Entre letras y ladrillos (Bilingual Press, 1996), an autobiographical novel written in the best of Miguel Mendez's baroque and conceptually intense style, evokes one of the most remarkable life histories of this century. Using his own "status as a Mexican Indian, wetback, and Chicano" as a yardstick, he takes us on a personal and collective voyage that culminates on a remarkable day in 1986 when he exchanged his job of full-time construction worker for that of full professor at the University of Arizona.