Rate My Professor Eduardo del Rio

Eduardo del Rio is Emeritus Professor of Literature and Culture at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where he served as Full Professor in the Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies. He previously held the position of Chair of the Department of English at the University of Texas at Brownsville. Del Rio earned his B.A. in 1983 and M.A. in 1990 from the University of Texas-Pan American, followed by a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 1996. His academic career spans institutions including the University of Texas-Pan American, the University of Texas at Brownsville, and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, reflecting his long-standing commitment to literature education in the Rio Grande Valley region.

Del Rio's scholarly work centers on British, American, and Latino literature, with a special focus on Cuban-American writers, exile, cultural identity, and duality. In 2003, he received a National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Research Award for his project "Beyond the Hyphen: Interviews with Cuban-American Writers," which led to the publication of his book One Island, Many Voices: Conversations with Cuban-American Writers by the University of Arizona Press in 2009. This volume features in-depth interviews with twelve prominent Cuban-American authors, including Nilo Cruz, Cristina García, and Gustavo Pérez Firmat, examining themes of memory and biculturalism. More recently, in 2023, he published CubaRican with Mouthfeel Press, a bilingual collection of approximately 100 pages of short stories, vignettes, and poems drawn from his experiences as a Cuban exile raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Del Rio has also published essays in national and international peer-reviewed journals and poetry in outlets such as The Journal of Caribbean Literature, Voices de la Luna, and The McKinley Review, including the poem "Colonia by the Sea" in 2018. As General Editor of The Prentice Hall Anthology of Latino Literature, he has made significant contributions to Latino literary studies. A Cuban exile who has lived in Texas since 1962, del Rio brings a unique multi-Latino perspective to his teaching and writing. He has been actively involved in university service, including roles on the Academic Senate and as chair of the Dual Enrollment Task Force.