Arturo Islas

Islas died on February 15, 1991, from complications related to AIDS.

Islas lived with Jay Spears until they broke up in 1970. Islas learned in 1985 that Spears was in hospital with AIDS, from which he died in 1986. Islas himself died of complications related to AIDS on 15 February 1991 at his campus home.

After completing his Ph.D in 1971, Arturo immediately joined the faculty of Stanford University in the English department. He was the Chair of the Faculty Recruitment Committee, adviser to Chicano undergraduates and fellows, and co-director of the Stanford Center for Chicano Research. He taught classes focusing on the English language and minority groups, and a class entitled "Chicano Themes", the first such class to be taught in Stanford's English Department. He received the Dinkelspiel Award for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence in 1976. In the same year, he was promoted to associate professor, thereby becoming Stanford's first tenured Chicano professor. In 1977, Islas took a sabbatical to finish writing Dia de los Muertos, the novel that would be published as The Rain God in 1984. The novel was awarded the best fiction prize from the Border Regional Library Conference in 1985 and was selected by the Bay Area Reviewers Association as one of the three best novels of 1984. In 1986, Islas became a full professor at Stanford University and began to write Migrant Souls, a sequel to The Rain God that was published in 1991. He had planned the books to be part of a trilogy and was working on the final book, La Mollie and the King of Tears, when he died. The novel was published posthumously.

Islas' works have many biographical ties. The strong themes of sexuality are related to Islas's own exploration of his sexuality. Many characters also suffer from physical illness, such as Miguel Chico in The Rain God. The novel opens with Miguel recovering from surgery and noting how he will "forever be a slave to plastic appliances" (7). Events like this directly reflect the life of Islas himself, who had many surgeries including a colostomy in 1969. Like Chico, Islas suffered from polio when he was eight and had to undergo long sessions of physical therapy. The illness left him with a permanent limp.

He received three degrees from Stanford: a B.A. in 1960, a Masters in 1963 and a Ph.D. in 1971, when he joined the Stanford faculty. Islas was one of the first Chicanos in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in English. In 1976, he became the first Chicano faculty member to receive tenure at Stanford.

Despite a life-threatening polio attack during childhood that left him with a permanent limp, Islas was a good student, and graduated as valedictorian of his class from El Paso Public High School in 1956, beginning undergraduate studies at Stanford University in Palo Alto in the fall of the same year. Islas initially intended to be a pre-med student in order to follow a career as a neurosurgeon. However, after his first biology and chemistry classes resulted in B's, Islas decided to study humanities instead, where he was receiving A's and excelling in his coursework. Islas ultimately became an English major, and sources differ on whether he minored in French Literature or religious studies. Islas received several honors for his success in his study of literature, eventually being elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society and receiving several awards for creative writing. After completing his B.A. in 1960, Islas went on to earn both a master's degree (1963) and Ph.D. (1971) in English from Stanford.

Arturo Islas, Jr. (May 25, 1938 – February 15, 1991) was an English professor and novelist from El Paso, Texas, whose writing focused on the experience of Chicano cultural duality.

Fleeing the Mexican Revolution, Islas' father and paternal grandparents crossed the United-States-Mexico border to live in El Paso, Texas, in 1910. Islas' grandmother, Crecenciana, was a teacher who devoted much of her time to disciplining and educating her children, teaching them to read, write and speak fluent English, enabling Islas' father, Arturo Islas Sr., became a police officer in a largely white police force, and passing onto Arturo Jr. and his cousins a deep connection with learning. Arturo Sr. and Jovita Islas had three sons altogether; Mario Islas became a priest in Liberia, and Luis Islas became at attorney in El Paso.