FlowerSong Press is pleased to announce the publication of Mi Carnal Frank/A Family Memoir and Biography of U.S. Congressman Frank Mariano Tejeda Jr. 1945-1997, written by Frank’s brother, Juan Tejeda. The book, set to be released in early February 2024, tells the story of the Tejeda family and Frank’s life from birth to a premature death at age 51.
Utilizing interviews with family and close friends, plus, 127 photos, documents and newspaper articles, Mi Carnal Frank chronicles Frank’s early years being raised by poor Mexicano parents on the southside of San Antonio, through his Marine Corps service and combat duty in Vietnam, college education, and 20-year career as a politician and elected public servant, first as a Texas State Representative, then a Texas Senator and U.S. Congressman. During these twenty years, Frank was a fierce advocate for social, educational, economic and environmental justice, the rights of the poor and his Mexican American community, and the people he represented. This book also tells the tale of how Frank developed and was the leader of a grassroots political alliance of elected officials in San Antonio known as the “Southside Coalition” (who some called a “political machine,” while others called it the “Brown Mafia”), and in the process became one of the most powerful Mexican American/Chicano politicians that San Antonio and the State of Texas have ever known.
Juan Tejeda retired in 2016 as a professor of Mexican American Studies and Music at Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas. A writer, musician, educator, ex-Jefe Segundo
of Xinachtli (the first traditional Mexica-Azteca Conchero dance group in Texas), arts administrator and activist, from 1980 to 1998 he was the Xicano Music Program Director at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center where, among his many duties, he founded and directed the annual Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio.
He is the button accordionist for the Conjunto Aztlan, and he and his wife, Anisa Onofre, are the publishers of Aztlan Libre Press, a small, independent publishing company based in Yanawana that is dedicated to the publishing, promotion, and free expression of Indigenous/Xicanx literature and art.
