Octavio Ignacio Romano: RIP

Octavio Ignacio Romano, Ph.D., passed away this month from a heart attack. He was an anthropologist and emeritus professor at the University of California Berkeley and the chief editor for TQS Books, a small publishing house that offers works on Chicano literature and history. In 1967 Romano wrote El Espejo (The Mirror), the first anthology of modern Chicano literature. From 1968 to 1974, Romano published the influential El Grito ("The Shout" or "Cry"), a journal dedicated to Chicano history and culture from an academic position. In honoring his passing, Sylvia Lemus Sharma, Ph.D., said of Romano: "I subscribed to every issue of El Grito because they fed my spirit and intellectual being and I carried them with me as textbooks when I taught future bilingual/ed American teachers in Mexico City in the early 1970's. I went on to graduate from Stanford University, Class of 1969, and created a Chicano Studies academic unit at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington in 1970." Sharma, like so many others, acknowledges that her academic aspirations were inspired by maestro Romano.

Since those early years the maestro continued to be an advocate for, and a champion of the Chicano masses. Romano contributed to many online forums and discussion groups, were he argued his positions. One such article "It ain't the morals, stupid!", was a critical review of the politics surrounding the 2004 "re-election" of George W. Bush. Romano’s son, Branko, will be posting a full online tribute to his father at the tqsbooks.com website. The staff of Xispas mourns the passing of this great educator… Octavio Ignacio Romano -¡Presente!