Américo Paredes: In His Own Words an Authorized Biography

Américo Paredes (1915-1999) was a folklorist scholar and professor at the University of Texas at Austin who is widely acknowledged as one of the founding scholars of Chicano Studies. With the publication of With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero in 1958 Paredes soon emerged as a challenger to the status quo. His book questioned the mythic nature of the Texas Rangers and provided an alternative counter-cultural narrative to the existing traditional narratives. He is credited with introducing the concept of Greater Mexico decades before its wider acceptance today among transnationalist scholars. The author Manuel F. Medrano interviewed Paredes over a five-year period before Paredes death in 1999 and also interviewed his family and colleagues.