Staff Report
New Mexico resident and author Simon Ortiz and long-time children's advocate Angela "Angie" Vachio will receive honorary degrees at UNM's spring commencement ceremony Saturday at 9 a.m. in University Arena.
The University will confer an honorary doctorate of letters to Ortiz and an honorary doctorate of humane letters to Vachio. Ortiz is widely regarded as one of today's most significant American Indian poets, while Vachio is executive director of Peanut Butter and Jelly Family Services, Inc., which she helped found nearly 30 years ago.
Ortiz has written 15 books and edited or co-edited five others. His writing includes poetry, short stories, essays and children's books.
His principal collections of poetry are "Going for the Rain," published in 1976; "A Good Journey," published in 1977; "Fight Back: for the Sake of the People, for the Sake of the Land," published in 1980; "From Sand Creek," published in 1981; "Woven Stone," published in 1992; and "After and Before the Lightening," published in 1994. His short stories include "Howbay Indians," published in 1978; "Fightin,'" published in 1983; and "Men on the Moon," published in 1999.
In his writing, Ortiz draws strength from the storytelling heritage of his people. A constant theme in his writing is the survival of American Indian culture against the many threats to its existence - past and present.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Ortiz earned two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize for Poetry, a grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the Western States Arts Association Lifetime Achievement Award.
He was born in Albuquerque and raised in Acoma Pueblo. He attended Fort Lewis College, UNM and the University of Iowa. He has taught creative writing and American Indian literature at many colleges and universities, including UNM from 1979-81; the University of Arizona, the University of California at Irvine and the University of Toronto.
Ortiz also was lieutenant governor of Acoma Pueblo.
In 1972, Vachio and Christine Ruiz Boyd founded Peanut Butter and Jelly Family Services, Inc. in Albuquerque's South Valley as a therapeutic and supportive learning environment for pre-school children who were at risk of being abused or neglected. Since then, Peanut Butter and Jelly has grown from a volunteer organization operating out of a donated storage room to a nationally-accredited, multi-county, comprehensive family services program.
In 1985, Vachio opened a second facility in Bernalillo County that focused on parents with mental retardation who sometimes lost custody of their children because they did not have strong parenting skills. In 1988, Vachio established the Importance of Parents and Children Together Project, which allows prison staff and community members to work with inmate parents and their children at the men's facility in Los Lunas. It was recently expanded to include the Penitentiary of New Mexico in Santa Fe.
The program, now regarded as a national model, was deemed so successful that the Department of Corrections asked Vachio to begin a similar program at the women's correctional facility in Grants. The new program was established in 1993 and provides parenting and educational training to help women effectively and positively participate in their children's lives.
Vachio and the Peanut Butter and Jelly staff have since begun a variety of other programs, such as one for delinquent teen parents at Albuquerque's Youth Diagnostic and Detention Center and another at Cuba High School that helps teen mothers return to school.
The National Institute of Corrections recently asked the Peanut Butter and Jelly staff to develop a model system of care for children whose parents are incarcerated.
Vachio has recently received the Liberty Belle Award of the Albuquerque Bar Association, the YWCA Woman on the Move Award and the Governor's Award for Outstanding New Mexico Women from the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women.
