Norma Elia Cantu, the Norine R. an T. Frank Murchinson Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, was named as the recipient of the fourteenth annual Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Luis Leal is a professor emeritus of Chicana and Chicano studies at the university and is a leading scholar of Chicano and Latino literature.
Professor Cantu is probably best know for her coming-of-age memoir Canicula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera (University of New Mexico Press, 1995). She was born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, but was raised in Laredo, Texas.
Before joining the faculty at Trinity University, Professor Cantu taught at Texas A&M University and was the senior arts administrator for the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. She holds a master’s degree from Texas A&M International University in Laredo and a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.