Francisco Laguna Correa


Francisco Laguna Correa is a writer, ethnographer, and college professor. He was awarded in 2012 the National Literary Prize of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, an institution based in New York City. In 2013, he received the International Poetry Prize of the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes. In 2016, Laguna Correa was one of the recipients of The Fuerza Award, a social recognition for his intellectual activism in the Pittsburgh area granted by The City of Pittsburgh, the collective Café con Leche, and The Latin American Cultural Union. The Chicago Review of Books recommended his book Crush Me for the 2017 National Poetry Month. His novel Wild North was included in the list of best Mexican fiction of 2017 selected by author Antonio Ortuño and published in the daily newspaper El Informador. He has been invited to deliver talks about his research at various institutions, including Emory University, the University of California, Texas State University, and Duke University.

Education & Teaching

He graduated from the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in 2001 after being forced to interrupt his studies due to the 1999 UNAM strike. He began his university studies at The School of Philosophy and Letters and The School of Political and Social Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, which is often cited as the most prestigious university of the Spanish-speaking world. He completed his undergraduate education at Portland State University, where he received a double BA in Liberal Studies and Literature. In addition, he holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh and two master's degrees, one in Immigration and another in Hispanic Philosophy, both from the Autonomous University of Madrid. He was the recipient in 2014 of the K. Leroy Irvis Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, and in 2016 he received a doctoral degree in Cultural and Literary Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In early 2019, he was forced to quit his appointment as assistant professor at the University of Denver due to a Human Rights issue.

Human Rights Issue

In November 2018, a group of people broke into the apartment of professor Laguna Correa, in Denver, while he was not there and broke the window of a neighbor. The Denver Police arrested Laguna Correa without holding any evidence and charged him with a criminal mischief. He was incarcerated in the Denver County Jail and in Cook County Jail, in Chicago. The apartment complex, Premier Lofts, destroyed video evidence that incriminated the management and the charge was not removed from professor Laguna Correa's record, thus damaging his reputation and human integrity.

Awards

National Literary Prize of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language
International Poetry Prize of the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes
The Fuerza Award
Latino of the Year of the Triad