Author Sergio Troncoso will present the keynote address for the El Paso's Parental Engagement Conference

"Diversity: Respecting Strengths and Differences" is the topic of The 14th Annual Regional Parental Engagement Conference for El Paso, Texas. The event is spear-headed by the regional education service center for El Paso and Hudspeth counties.

The conference is an opportunity for parents to learn about various topics such as healthy lifestyles, students with special needs, healthy sexuality, financial planning and community resources, among many others.

There are break out sessions for parents to pick and choose from. Some sessions will be presented in both English and or Spanish. As the conference is meant for parents, there are no children present.

The registration fee is $25 per person. Breakfast and lunch is included.

Sergio Troncoso is the author of The Nature of Truth (Northwestern University Press, 2003) and The Last Tortilla and Other Stories (University of Arizona Press, 1999), which won the Premio Aztlán and the Southwest Book Award. His newest book, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays is forthcoming from Arte Público Press. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and two graduate degrees, in international relations and philosophy, from Yale University. He won a Fulbright scholarship to Mexico and was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund's Alumni Hall of Fame. He lives and works in New York City.

About the Book:

“On good days I feel I am a bridge. On bad days I just feel alone,” Sergio Troncoso writes in this riveting collection of sixteen personal essays in which he seeks to connect the humanity of his Mexican family to people he meets on the East Coast, including his wife’s Jewish kin. Raised steps from the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas, Troncoso crossed what seemed an even more imposing border when he left home to attend Harvard College.

Initially, “outsider status” was thrust upon him; later, he adopted it willingly, writing about the Southwest and Chicanos in an effort to communicate who he was and where he came from to those unfamiliar with his childhood world. He wrote to maintain his ties to his family and to fight against the elitism he experienced at an Ivy League school.

Troncoso writes to preserve his connections to the past, but also puts pen to paper for the future. In his three-part essay entitled “Letter to My Young Sons,” he documents the terror of his wife’s breast cancer diagnosis and the ups and downs of her treatment. Other essays convey the joys and frustrations of fatherhood and the impact his wife’s Jewish heritage and religion have on his Mexican-American identity.

Crossing Borders: Personal Essays reveals a writer, father and husband who has crossed linguistic, cultural and intellectual borders to provoke debate about contemporary Latino identity.

Challenging assumptions about literature, the role of writers in America, fatherhood and family, these essays bridge the chasm between the poverty of the border region and the highest echelons of success in America.