AMÉRICO PAREDES (1915-1999), the famed Chicano folklorist who died at the age of 84, is widely considered to have been at the forefront of the movement that saw the birth of Chicana/o literary and cultural studies as an academic discipline in the 1970s and 1980s. He was professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of numerous ground-breaking works, including With a Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero (University of Texas Press, 1970), the novel George Washington Gómez (Arte Público Press, 1990), and two collections of poetry, Cantos de adolescencia / Songs of Youth (Arte Público Press, 2007) and Between Two Worlds (Arte Público Press, 1990).