As part of Latinx Heritage Month, the University of Northern Iowa will be hosting a reading with Jesus “Chuy” Renteria on Tuesday, Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. in Sabin 002. Renteria will read from his coming-of-age memoir, “We Heard It When We Were Young: Tales of Growing Up Mexican American in Small-Town Iowa,” which was released in 2021 by The University of Iowa Press.

Renteria’s memoir recounts his time growing up in West Liberty, oscillating between the Mexican, Laotian and small-town cultures that made up Iowa’s first majority-Hispanic town. Both sides of his family are from border towns in Mexico that transplanted to meatpacking towns in the Midwest. Renteria is known for telling stories that celebrate the spaces between cultures — of mangled Spanglish and generational clashes and the messiness of people finding themselves.

In addition to being a writer, Renteria is a hip-hop dancer, teacher and an assistant director for the University of Iowa’s Inclusive Education and Strategic Initiatives Unit. He was the host of “The Englert’s Writers of Color Reading Series” podcast and published stories in “We the Interwoven: An Anthology of Bicultural Iowa: Vol. 1.”

The reading is free and open to the public.

This Latinx Heritage Month event is sponsored by the Department of Languages & Literatures, the Center for Diversity, Inclusion & Social Justice and UNIdos.

Contact:

Elise DuBord, associate professor of Spanish, Department of Languages & Literatures, 319-273-2183 (office), elise.dubord@uni.edu