Chuy Ramirez presents at the 2011 NACCS Tejas Regional Conference, McAllen Texas

Chuy will be participating in the NACCS conference this February. Please come out and support NACCS, local speakers and authors, South Texas College, and experience an amazing event!

Session 6: Building J 1-608, 3:15-4:30PM

Tapón y Gloria: Translating Experience into Poetry, Gender, and Life

Christopher Carmona, Texas A&M – College Station: “Practicing Palabras: Raúl Salinas, the Xicanindio Poet Redefines what it means to Beat”

Chuy Ramírez, Independent Scholar: “Igualada, An Essay: Exploring the Gloria Anzaldúa Link between Powerlessness and Chicana/o Self Expression”

Friday February 25th: 7:00 PM – McAllen Convention Center
Meet Authors and Book Signing: Begins at 9:00PM

Participating authors include: Maylei Blackwell, Norma E. Cantú, Margaret Dorsey, Laura Cortez García, María E. Cotera, Margaret Dorsey, Dionne Espinoza, Daniel Garcia Ordaz, Grisel Gómez Cano, Juan Antonio González, John Morán González, Katherine Hoerth, Thomas Kreneck, Ire‟ne Lara Silva, Lady Mariposa, Lara Medina, Manuel Medrano, Josie Méndez Negrete, Felicitas Núñez, Cynthia Orozco, Kamala Platt, Marco Portales, Catherine Ragland, Chuy Ramírez, Delia Rodríguez, Vicki Ruiz, Rhina Toruño Haensly, John J. Valadez, Javier Villarreal, and Emilio Zamora

Noche Cultural: Begins at 9:00PM, (Concurrent with Book signing session)

RUBRIC for "I am Joaquin"

Use this Rubric as a guide

Judee Koester Soendker, "It's Still Me!" graces the cover of Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories

Local valley artist Mrs. Judee Koester Soendker had studied angels in the Raymondville cemetery for inspiration. She applied the paint to canvas and completed a compilation of twelve paintings called the Guardians. A versatile artist, Mrs. Soendker also lends her time and expertise to teach at Golden Palms Retirement and Health Center offereing classes and workshops. She has displayed her art in Raymondville, Texas and this February her painting, "It's Still Me!" graced the cover of Chuy Ramirez's book Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories.

Mr. Ramirez noted, "The connection I felt to the painting would lead me to use it for the cover."

Strawberry Fields is available for purchase at Amazon.


Judee Soendker

Supporting Culturally Relative Literature

We thank Ray & El Paso Authors Pluma Fronteriza
for the support & highlight of Strawberry Fields.

We follow & support your Blog (El Paso, Texas).

For more information you can contact Ray at rayerojas@gmail.com


-Chuy Ramirez

Strawberry Fields is available for purchase on Amazon.

Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories, on Amazon

First Texas Publishers
Immediate Release

May 18th, 2010

Chuy Ramirez Debuts Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories
On Amazon

Book of Short Stories


(McAllen, Texas) – Strawberry Fields, a Book of Short Stories, by McAllen, Texas attorney and fiction writer, Chuy Ramirez, is officially on Amazon. Go to www.amazon.com and readers can locate Strawberry Fields via hardcover, paperback, and digitally on KINDLE.

The book signing will follow a presentation of excerpts Ramirez has selected to read.
“Strawberry Fields tells the tales of three generations of a Mexican family as they make their way from Northern Mexico to South Texas,” says Ramirez. The book is written like a novel but readers can read chapters as independent vignettes. The book is also a murder mystery. Most of the focus, though, is on that period in the 1960s when the “baby boomers” begin to come of age. Strawberry Fields is symbolic of both the strawberry fields in Michigan at which farm workers labored to improve their lot, as well as an abstract place that represents the dreams and ambitions of a young Joaquin, the protagonist.

Ramirez himself grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, attended Pan American University in Edinburg, Texas and is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. He practices law in McAllen. Strawberry Fields is his first fictional work.

For reviews of the book and more information on the author, or to purchase Strawberry Fields, visit www.firsttexaspublishing.com or contact Mirta Espinola at 210-394-1254. In McAllen, the book is available at Los Cazadores Restaurant at Ivy and North Main. In San Juan, the book is for sale at Ebony Estates at 700 N “I” Rd, Suite B, San Juan, TX 78589. In Edinburg, you can find the book at the Law Office of Alex Moreno 4751 S. Jackson, 956-381-8000. The book is also available in San Antonio, Texas at Tres Rebecas and The Twig Book Shop.

South Texas College Library, McAllen, Texas features Chuy Ramirez

Local author dishes juice on new book at STC Pecan Campus Library

There are many traditions and cultural nuances unique to South Texas and it is this tapestry of stories and tales that come together to create a shared and distinctive history. Chuy Ramirez knows a great deal about this rich history and what it’s like to live on the cusp of two cultures. His first novel, “Strawberry Fields,” chronicles the stories of three generations of a Mexican family’s gradual integration into American culture.

The San Juan native and attorney will read excerpts from his book at South Texas College’s Pecan Campus Library Rainbow Room on April 10 at 2 p.m. Copies of the book will be on sale during the event, and the author will hold a book signing after the program. The event is free and open to the public.

“The stories in ‘Strawberry Fields’ chronicle the early years in the life of Joaquin, a successful attorney who, at the age of 50, embarks on a journey of self-discovery,” said Ramirez. “Most of the focus is on the period in the 1960s when ‘baby boomers’ began to come of age. And the strawberry fields are symbolic of both the strawberry fields in Michigan, where farm workers labored to improve their lot, as well as an abstract place that represents the dreams and ambitions of the young protagonist.”

Ramirez himself grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, attended Pan American University in Edinburg, Texas and is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin School of Law. He is currently practices in McAllen as a partner in the firm Ramirez and Guerrero, LLP.

“The book speaks volumes about self-identity, self-worth and the transition into a different culture,” said STC Library Specialist Esther Garcia. “We are honored to have Ramirez speak, highlighting the creative, limitless talent of our local authors.”

For reviews of the book and information about the author, or to purchase “Strawberry Fields,” visit www.iberoaztlan.com or contact Mirta Espinola at 210-394-1254.

For more information about the event contact Garcia at 956-872-6485 or at egarcia10@southtexascollege.edu.

South Texas College, 2010, http://news.southtexascollege.edu/?tag=strawberry-fields

Immediate release in San Antonio at TWIG Book Shop

First Texas Publishers
Immediate Release

April 8th, 2010


Texas fiction writer, Chuy Ramirez, will be featured at the Twig Bookshop, 200 E. Grayson Suite 124 in San Antonio on Friday, May 7th from 5pm to 7pm.The public is invited. Ramirez, who is from South Texas, has a home in north San Antonio and is General Counsel to Lone Star National Bank, which is opening several branch banks in San Antonio. His book of short stories, Strawberry Fields, published in February, is a collection of stories and vignettes of three generations of a South Texas family beginning at the turn of the century and ending around the year 2000. The stories include the coming of the railroad and irrigation systems to the Valley and the people who labored to slash and burn thousands of South Texas acres to convert prickly desert to productive farm land.
As a boy in the early 1960s, Ramirez had chopped cotton just south of Lamesa around a community called Sparenberg. Forty years later, in “Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories”, a character much like Ramirez recalls Lamesa:
“In the 1950s, on Saturdays, the family would drive in for groceries from the cotton fields around Sparenberg and Klondike—not quite towns on the Texas mesa, but rather zip codes denoting farm-to-market road intersections. Welcoming them as the road curved north into the town square of Lamesa, Texas,was the Negro shanty town. A segregated clay-red flatland devoid of flora or fauna (save for the sturdy tumbleweeds, which grew in abundance), was reserved for the small huts with the tar and asphalt siding. The only integrated venue in town was the long line at the rear of Murphy’s slaughterhouse, where the Mexicans and the Negros would line up at dawn on Saturdays with their galvanized washtubs to receive the calf bowels that Murphy disposed of.”
For more information about Strawberry Fields, visit the Web site at www.iberoaztlan.com .

NEWS on Strawberry Fields, Author: Chuy Ramirez

South Texas College and The City of McAllen offer locations where Chuy Ramirez will be signing books and participating in a Q & A session with readers.

For more information: www.iberoaztlan.com