Rice Beinecke scholar to focus on border issues in graduate school

Rice Beinecke scholar to focus on border issues in graduate school

BY ARIE WILSON
Rice News staff

Brown College junior Alberto Herrera has been named winner of the Beinecke Scholarship, a prestigious award that grants recipients $32,000 toward their graduate studies. Only 20 scholarships were given out this year.

Herrera, a Hispanic studies major from El Paso, is the first Beinecke recipient from Rice University in six years and only the university’s seventh undergraduate to receive the honor.

After graduation, Herrera hopes to attend the University of California–Berkeley, where he will focus on border literature and border identity.
Growing up as a Mexican-American in a border town, Herrera often felt as though he did not assimilate into either culture very well.

“Literature was always something I used to help better understand myself,” Herrera said. “Now, it has made a nice progression into my field of study, Hispanic studies, where we focus heavily on the literature of Spain and Latin America.”

Herrera wants to explore the social aspects of art and the way it promotes social change when combined with literature.

“I saw the beginnings of this while I was studying [abroad] in Brazil with a group of writers/lawyers who argue legal cases in a metered rhyme,” Herrera said.

In addition to studying the pamphlet form of expression known as “literatura de cordel,” Herrera has traveled to Mexico to explore a novel by Juan Rulfo titled “Pedro Paramo.” During the summers in his hometown of El Paso, he volunteered as a researcher with the Sin Fronteras Project, which addresses border issues.

Winning the Beinecke Scholarship has given Herrera the confidence he needs to write about issues that affect students at Rice and pursue his passions of writing and activism.

“I feel that I am a reference for people like me who grew up in an environment where academics were not valued,” Herrera said. “I think that by getting this award, it is my obligation to help others with what they feel is important.”

About 100 colleges and universities are invited to nominate a student for the Beinecke Scholarship. Only juniors planning on pursuing a master’s or doctoral program in the arts, humanities or social sciences and who have demonstrated superior standards of intellectual ability, scholastic achievement and personal promise are considered for the scholarship.