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A new voice

ASU professor eager to share his ‘worldly’ views with LPM readers

Gary Francisco Keller

Cecilia Rosales, Executive Editor of Latino Perspectives Magazine, saw me at a recent reception at the Phoenix Museum of Art for Phantom Sightings and a show highlighting the works of local Latina/o artists. Cecilia and I have partnered before for the common good, particularly on Latina/o art projects. She asked me to contribute a column. I am honored.

I told Cecilia, y es la pura verdad, that we at Arizona State University receive a healthy number of Latino-focused magazines, and Latino Perspectives is the one I always turn to first. It’s a national/international general interest magazine with good coverage on key topics such as immigration and the Dream Act, the landmark appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, y toda suerte de nuevas in health, education, law, art, literature, business, and careers.

Moreover, what stands out for Latinos such as me who live in the Valle del Sol, is the invaluable coverage of the Latino presencia in all of its richness in our state. So: excellent national stories, variety, piquancy, relevance, and inspiration, and the key feature of Arizona coverage in depth, available nowhere else. There is no substitute for Latino Perspectives is what I told Cecilia when she suggested I be a contributor.

This is a good match for Latino Perspectives, the ongoing objectives of ASU, and for me personally. I look to the future contributions I will be making on our art, education, history (here comes the centenary of La revolución de 1910!) and many other things worthy of comment by a professor who has been around el rancho grande for many a vuelta.

Gary Francisco Keller since 1986 has been a faculty member at ASU where he is a Regents’ Professor and director of the Hispanic Research Center.