Erené with Wolf Medicine is Dr. Irene Blea's 12th book and there are many surprises. the autobiography introduces readers to the complexities of growing up and getting old in three cultures: Native American, Chicano, and mainstream Anglo dominated America. Added to her long list of publications are her fictionalized family stories that include: Suzanna, Poor People's Flowers and Beneath the Super Moon. Blea places her characters with a social-historical context drawing for her native New Mexican roots, her life in Colorado, California, and the need to return to her birthplace. She has Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado-Boulder and two of her textbooks: Toward A Chicano Social Science and La Chicana are considered "Classics" in her field. After her retirement from California State University-Los Angeles Blea wrote Daughters of the West Mesa based on a true unsolved serial killing and the remains of 11 women and an unborn fetus found in the Albuquerque desert. Ten of the women were Chicanas or Native American and one was African American. Her work in progress is a collection of poetry that is still untitled. The author uses her knowledge as a Tenured, Full Professor, and Chairperson of the Mexican American Studies Department at CSU-LA and her life in the southwestern part of the United States to create her publications. She frequently speaks at conferences and on college campus about populations often missing from the literature. She lectured as a New Mexico Humanities Council Scholar for 10 years and is expert on race, class & gender relation. Blea has traveled internationally throughout the Americas and enjoys Mexico and Costa Rica. In Israel, China, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sicily, and Germany she has delivered academic lectures, read her poetry, and discussed research for her books. Over the course of her extensive career she has also written and published four poetry chapbooks, over 35 academic and popular articles, and has developed a strong on-line presence with an emphasis on women. Dr. Blea has received many awards for her scholarship, her human rights work, and poetry. In in the early 1980s she won the Dr. Martin Luther King Literary Award, read with Alex Ginsberg and Andy Clausen and was honored for her community service by two separate community organizations. In May, 2009 she was recognized by LULAC of New Mexico for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement. In 2015 she was featured as the Best of Albuquerque by ABQ the Magazine, and was referred to as the "... Latinx writer of our time" by Beva Padilla Sanchez of the Women's March. Visit Dr. Irene Blea on Facebook.
