Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

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Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca (born 1926), professor emeritus of English in the Texas State University System (Sul Ross), and Scholar in Residence at Western New Mexico University, Silver City, NM, has long been regarded as one of the most persuasive of American Hispanic social and literary critics, at the forefront of many Hispanic initiatives. Considered the founder of Chicano literary history and one of the early Quinto Sol writers of "The Chicano Renaissance" (1966–1975), he is principal scholar of that literary movement, coining the term for it in Backgrounds of Mexican American Literature (University of New Mexico, 1971), first historic and taxonomic study in the field. His insights in that work are seminal on the "forgotten pages of American literature." In 1969, he taught the first course in Chicano literature in the United States at the University of New Mexico.

When he started grade school he was ”Felipe” but the name was changed quickly to “Philip” despite the name “Felipe” on his birth certificate. Changing his name to “Philip” was part of the Americanization process practiced by American schools then. Subsequently, his official records–schools, military service, public documents–identified him as “Philip Ortego” or “Philip D. Ortego”– the D stands for Darragh.

With the surgence of consciousness-raising in the 60's, he reverted to using “Felipe” socially in English but, he explains, throughout the years he was always “Felipe” in Spanish-language contexts. He continued to write as “Philip D. Ortego,” sometimes as “Philip Dar-ragh Ortego.” From 1972 on, he wrote variously as “Philip D. Ortego y Gasca” or Felipe de Ortego y Gasca”– adding his mother’s name “Gasca” in the Hispanic manner and tradition as part of his surname. In 1976 he opted to identify himself socially and literarily in English as “Felipe de Ortego y Gasca–much the way a public figure uses a nom de fame for public business while retaining his “official” identity for “official” transactions. For example, “Ramon Esteves” is the “official” name of Martin Sheen, the actor.

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[edit] Education

Dr. Ortego began his academic studies in comparative literature at the University of Pittsburgh soon after World War II (1948–1952), spawning a career now spanning more than 55 years and hundreds of published and performed works, many translated into other languages. At Pitt, he completed the Air Force ROTC program and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve. He finished the B.A. in English (with minors in Spanish and French) at Texas Western College (El Paso) of the University of Texas System in 1959, earned an M.A. in English (with a minor in Spanish) from the University of Texas (Texas Western College) in 1966, and completed the Ph.D. in English (with a minor in Linguistics) at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in 1971. He completed a post-doctoral program in Management and Planning for Higher Education at the Harriman Institute, Graduate School of Business at Columbia University in 1973.

[edit] Writer

An accomplished writer of various genres (prose, poetry, fiction, drama, and song), Dr. Ortego's scholarly interests include works on Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, Wordsworth, Browning, Melville, and Steinbeck. His work on The Stamp of One Defect: A Study of Hamlet (1966) is considered one of the most provocative in a century of Hamlet inquiry. Other texts of his include The Wide Well of Hours (poetry, 1952), Guide for Teaching French (with Anice Bateman, 1964), Sangre y Cenizas (poetry, 1966), The Linguistic Imperative in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (Center for Applied Linguistics, 1970), We Are Chicanos: Anthology of Mexican American Literature (Washington Square Press, 1973), Chicano Content and Social Work Education (American Council on Social Work Education, 1974), A Medio Grito: Chicanos and American Education (with Marta Sotomayor, National Council of La Raza and the Ford Foundation, 1975), The Tejano Yearbook (with Arnoldo De Leon, Caravel Press, 1978), Contemporary Perspectives on the Old Spanish Missions of San Antonio (Our Lady of the Lake University, 1980), The Cross and the Pen: Spanish Colonial and Mexican Periods of Texas Letters (Monograph, Hispanic Foundation, 1983), The Critical Continuum: Selected Studies in Literature (Caravel Press, 1986), The Broken Arcs: Essays in the Quest for Human Dignity (Caravel Press, 1989).

His works appear in numerous books, including the Americana Annual (1971), Foundations of American Education (2nd Edition, Allyn and Bacon, 1972), Essays Today 7 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), Searching for America (National Council of Teachers of English, 1972), Improving College English Skills (revised edition, Scott Foresman, 1972), Goal Making for English Teachers (National Council of Teachers of English, 1973), Current Perspectives on Social Problems (3rd Edition, Wadsworth, 1973), The Wiley Reader (1975), Modern Chicano Writers: Twentieth Century Views (Prentice Hall, 1979), Developing the Multicultural Process in Classroom Interaction: Competencies for Teachers (University Press of America, 1979), Introduction to Chicano Studies (2nd Edition, Macmillan, 1982), Chicano Literature: A Reference Guide (Greenwood Press, 1984), Community Organization in a Diverse Society (3rd Edition, Allyn & Bacon, 1998), Encyclopedia of American Poetry (2005), Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States (2005).

Author of hundreds of scholarly, critical, public affairs, and creative pieces, his articles, essays, fiction, and poetry appear in leading national and international publications, including The Nation, Saturday Review, The Center Magazine, The American Scholar, Chaucer Review, Connecticut Review, University Review, New England Review, Denver Quarterly, Studies in Linguistics, Southwestern American Literature, Journal of Reading Behavior, Social Casework, Borderlands Journal, Journal of Ethnic Studies, The Reading Teacher, Barat Review, CLA Journal, Choice, Aztlan, Journal of South Texas.

[edit] Educator

He began his teaching career in 1952 as a Teacher of French, transitioning to university teaching as an Instructor of English and Associate Director of the Freshman Writing Program at New Mexico State University–Las Cruces in 1964. From there he moved to the University of Texas at El Paso as Assistant Professor of English and Founding Director of the Chicano Studies Program–first such program in the state, and still in existence. In 1972 he went to Denver as Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Assistant to the President at Metropolitan State College where he joined with Dan Valdes in 1972 (as Associate Publisher and Managing Editor) in founding La Luz Magazine, first national Hispanic public affairs magazine in English. He was affiliated with La Luz until 1982.

In 1974 he was appointed Professor of Hispanic Studies and Founding Vice Chancellor for Academic Development of the Hispanic University of America in Denver, among the first efforts by American Hispanics to found their own institutions of higher education. In 1978 he accepted the challenge to organize the Institute for Intercultural Studies and Research at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas, as Professor of Intercultural Studies and Founding Director. When the Institute for the Study of Hispanic Cultures was reorganized in Washington DC in 1982 as The Hispanic Foundation, he was tapped to become its first Chairman of the Board. While in Washington DC, he and a cohort of Hispanics founded The National Hispanic Reporter in 1983, first na-tional Hispanic newspaper in English, of which he was first Editor-in-Chief, then Publisher until 1992.

Feeling the need to return to his academic roots, in 1986 he moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he became Founding Dean of the Hispanic Leadership Institute, serving concurrently as Scholar in Residence in English and Comparative Literature at Arizona State University--Tempe. In 1990 he was named Scholar in Residence in English, Mass Communications, and Information Studies in the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman's University--Denton. In 1993 he moved to Sul Ross State University (Texas State University System) as its first Scholar in Residence in Social and Behavioral Studies, later appointed Professor of Education, and finally tenured Professor of English. He retired in 1999 and moved to Kingsville, Texas, where his wife, Gilda, was appointed Professor and Director of the University Library at Texas A&M University-Kingsville.

Dr. Ortego has spent the last four decades seeking to enlarge the canon of American literature to include contributions of American minorities and women. Since the advent of the Chicano Movement at the start of the 60's, Dr. Ortego's academic and professional efforts have been directed towards the reconstruction of American literature, asserting that American literature needs to be reflected as the sum of its ethnic parts. For Dr. Ortego, American literature is more than an extension of colonial British literature or the literature of the Anglo Atlantic frontier of colonial America. England was the mother country of only one group of Americans, he explains. America has many mother countries.

In 1968 Dr. Ortego was a founding member of the Task Force on Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English created by the National Council of Teachers of English. Between 1968 and 1972 the Task Force met with publishers, teachers and heads of departments of English, assessing the status of minority literature in American schools, colleges, and universities. In 1972 the Task Force issued its blistering assessment of American literary texts in Searching for America. The report included "Criteria" for judging multiethnic content in American literary texts. That document includes Dr. Ortego's insightful essay on "Chicanos and American literature" (with Jose Carrasco), reprinted in The Wiley Reader (1975). In a special ceremony in Washington, DC in 1982, Dr. Ortego received a Founder's Award from the Task Force on Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English.

Though regarded as a phenomenon of recent origin–the 60's– Dr. Ortego's taxonomy for Chicano literature, widely accepted and used by scores of literary scholars, considers the beginning of Chicano literature as February 1, 1848, the day the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed and more than half of Mexico's territory was ceded to the United States along with an indeterminate number of "souls" ranging to a high of 3 million by some Chicano historians. "That's the beginning of the Mexican American experience," he says. "Before that, the literature of the American Southwest–which was first Spanish (1521-1821), then Mexican (1810-1836/1848)–constitutes the roots of Chicano literature.

At this point he offers an analogy, pointing out that the literature of the Atlantic Frontier from 1610 to 1776 is really British colonial literature, just as the literature of the Hispanic Southwest from 1521 to 1848 was first Spanish colonial literature then Mexican literature. And just as the literature of the British colonial period in American letters is considered "the beginnings" of American literature so, too, should the literature of the Spanish colonial period and the Mexican period of the American Southwest be considered part of "the beginnings" of American literature. That stretches the canon of American literature to the beginning of the 16th century, a hundred years earlier than the traditional beginning of American literature.

Why do this, he asks? "Because it's part of our geopolitical past," Dr. Ortego explains. "The United States did not acquire an Hispanic Southwest devoid of culture and tradition. The Hispanic letters of the American Southwest are as important in understanding the American character as the British letters of the Atlantic Frontier are in understanding that character. We're not talking here about the literature of Spain or of Mexico but, as professor Stanley T. Williams has pointed out, we're talking about the Hispanic literature of the United States. Just as when we talk about the colonial literature of the Atlantic Frontier of the United States, we're not talking about British literature."

[edit] Military career

A seasoned world traveler, Dr. Ortego was a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps during World War II (from 1943 to 1946). Recalled as an Air Force 2nd Lieutenant during the Korean War, he served into the Vietnam War era in various administrative capacities. After completing Flying School (class 53-O) at Goodfellow Air Force Base (San Angelo, Texas), he served at the SAC Survival School in Reno, Nevada. Following an assignment as Strategic Intelligence Threat Analyst in Soviet Studies with U.S. Air Forces Europe (USAFE), he served as a Special Weapons Officer (Atlas SM-65 ICBM). During this period, he pioneered Missile Materiel Management's conversion of manual accounting procedures to Automated Data Processing (ADP), a service for which he received the Air Force Commendation Medal. He left the Air Force to pursue graduate studies in English.

[edit] Service

He has served as consultant to national and international groups, agencies and corporations, including the Executive Office of the President of the United States (USTR), Secretaria de Educacion Publica (Mexico), U.S.–Mexico Border Commission, Education Commission of the States, American Cancer Society, National Commerce Exchange, Basic Data Corporation, National Association of Trade & Technical Schools, and Pergamon Press. He has carried out research and demonstration projects for the Department of Education, Center for Applied Linguistics, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Ford Foundation. Over the years, he has secured more than 3 million dollars in federal, state, and private grants for various academic and research activities.

In 1982 he was Founding Secretary of the National Hispanic Quincentennial Commission; and in 1983 he Chaired the National Commission on the Status of Hispanics in the Department of Defense. He's a Founding Member of the National Hispanic Media Association, Founder of the National Resources Network for Hispanic Leadership, Past President of the Hispanic Heritage Society of the United States, and Past Chair of the National LULAC Heritage Commission.

He has served on the boards of the Hispanic Writers Guild, Texas Commission for the Humanities, El Paso Public Television Foundation, Colorado Civil Liberties Union and is a member of various professional organizations including The American Library Association, The American Society for Information Sciences, American Society for Training and Development, Association for Library and Information Studies Education, Modern Language Association, National Council of Teacher os English, National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He has also served on numerous editorial boards.

[edit] Actor

He has extensive theatrical experience as actor, director, and playwright. His acting credits include Schmuel in Arthur Miller's Playing for Time (1991), Archie in Artichoke (1987), Herod in Robert Arden's The Business of Good Government (1978), and Gaston in Gigi (1960). He had screen roles in the films Nadine (with Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger, 1986) and Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 (1998).

His play, Elsinore (musical adaptation of Hamlet) with Mark Medoff (author of Children of a Lesser God) premiered in 1968; and his play Madre del Sol (story of Cortez and Moctezuma) was staged in San Antonio, Texas in 1981, in Mexico City in 1982 and in Dallas, Texas in 1983 (supported by the Meadows Foundation and the National Conference of Christians and Jews). In 1993 his play Voces de Mujeres (Voices of Women) was presented at the 5th International Conference of Women at the University of Costa Rica--San Jose. For Greenwood Press he narrated the film North From Mexico (based on the book by Carey McWilliams); and for Harper & Row he was discussant (with Margaret Mead, Roy Wilkins, et al), on the audiocassette series Why People Hate: The Origins of Discrimination.

[edit] Honors and recognition

Among other honors, awards, and distinctions, Ortego is:

  • recipient of the Letras de Aztlan Award from the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies--Tejas Foco.
  • recipient of the Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Critica Nueva Award from the University of New Mexico for his conbtributions to Chicano literary history, theory, and criticism
  • recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award by the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education
  • nominee for the Minnie Piper Stevens Distinguished Teacher Award
  • Mary Thomas Marshall Lecturer (Sul Ross)
  • Lilly Fellow for Community Leadership
  • recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award (Washington State University-Pullman)
  • recipient of the Presidio La Bahia Award for best work on Spanish colonial Texas (Kathryn Stoner O'Connor Foundation and Sons of the Republic of Texas)
  • recipient of the Ruben Salazar Foundation Award for distinguished Journalism
  • Senior Fulbright Scholar in American Studies (University of Rosario, Argentina)
  • recipient of the NEA-Reader's Digest Foundation Award for Fiction
  • recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Award (Student Association of the University of Texas at El Paso)
  • Dean Emeritus of the Hispanic Leadership Institute (Arizona State University)
  • Chair Emeritus of The Hispanic Foundation

He is listed in:

  • The Directory of American Scholars
  • The Dictionary of International Biography
  • Who's Who in American Education
  • Who's Who in the Southwest
  • Who's Who in the World
  • Who's Who Among America's Teachers
  • Mexican American Biographies: A Historical Dictionary 1836–1987
  • The Dictionary of Hispanic Biography
  • Who's Who Among Hispanic Americans
  • American Hispanic Biography
  • Chicano Scholars and Writers