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Hispanic Convocation taps humorist for keynote address


December 10, 2013

Gustavo Arellano, a popular Mexican-American humorist, will don a cap, gown and serape-style sash, and deliver some laughs – as well as impart a few nuggets of wisdom – as keynote speaker for the fall 2013 Hispanic Convocation at Arizona State University.

The ASU Office of Public Affairs is inviting the media and members of the public to attend the ceremony at 11:30 a.m., Dec. 18, at ASU Gammage, 1151 S. Forest Ave., Tempe.

“This convocation is especially significant because it celebrates academic achievements in a festive, cultural environment shared with family and friends,” said Rhonda Carrillo, assistant director in the Office of Community Relations.

Arellano is the editor of OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Orange County, Calif., a best-selling author and a lecturer with the Chicana and Chicano Studies department at California State University, Fullerton. He writes “¡Ask a Mexican!,” a nationally syndicated column that has a weekly circulation of more than two million people in 39 states, and has won several awards for his column about America’s largest minority.

"I'm honored to speak at ASU, even though they thrashed my UCLA Bruins in football recently,” Arellano said. “No college rivalry will ever get in the way of me being able to celebrate the graduation of Latinos from college and reminding them this is the first step in a long march toward success."

Arellano will be sharing the spotlight with two exceptional ASU students:

• Yonathan Vivas, a double business major in the W.P. Carey School of Business, will be honored with the 2013 Jose Ronstadt Undergraduate Award.

• Natali Segovia, a Juris Doctor in the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, will accept this year’s Ed Pastor Outstanding Graduate Award.

The Hispanic Convocation is a tradition established by ASU Hispanic students in 1984 that celebrates the accomplishments of ASU’s Hispanic graduates. This year’s event will include approximately 110 graduates.

ASU enrolled just over 76,000 students across its four campuses at the beginning of the fall 2013 semester. Of that total, more than 13,892 were Hispanic undergraduate and graduate students. Their academic achievements are supported by more than 1,300 Hispanic faculty and staff at the university.

For more information about ASU’s Hispanic Convocation, visit http://outreach.asu.edu