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Portrait of Fidel Tafolla

The original handwritten manuscript was written in Spanish by the Reverend Santiago Tafolla at the age of 71. Tafolla was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico under Mexican rule; traveled widely in the US; and served in the Texas Indian Wars and the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The memoir offers a rare look at 19th century Texas from the Tejano perspective and is the only known memoir of a Mexican American who served in the Civil War. Tafolla's great-granddaughters Carmen and Laura Tafolla transcribed, translated, and edited the memoir, which was ultimately published as A Life Crossing Borders: Memoir of a Mexican-American Civil War Soldier, by Arté Público Press in 2009.

De Johnson shares her family's history in Texas and her experience attending graduate school at UT-Austin. She explains how her education background and teaching experiences at private business colleges in Austin led to her employment at SWTSU in the 1970s. She describes her time working in the university's counseling center and teaching psychology courses. Dean Johnson outlines the creation of SLAC and the resources she's developed to help university students effectively learn, and she predicts what SLAC will be like in the future.