by Bryce Milligan - Special to the Express-News

The late poet Raul Salinas once famously called Angela De Hoyos the "den mother of the Chicano movement."

He was not referring to Cub Scouts but to wolves. It was, in many ways, a perfect description. De Hoyos was fierce in her advocacy, loyal to her raza and the gentlest of guiding spirits to many, many young writers.

De Hoyos passed peacefully on Sept. 24, sitting at her breakfast table as her faithful companion of 50-some years, Moises Sandoval, was fixing her cereal. She had been ill and increasingly reclusive for the last few years. This was not surprising for a poet who once asserted, "I'm a cannibal lady, / I want 8-legged poems / or none at all. . . . "

Born in 1924 in Coahuila, she came to San Antonio when she was 2. Early romantic poems appeared in her high school newspaper. Moved by the struggle of migrant workers and the urban poor, her poetry turned increasingly political — predating the Chicano literary movement by many years.

Few people know that during the 1950s, Angela was a lyricist (as Angelina Sandoval) who worked with musicians such as Emilio Caceres and the popular group Los Tres Reyes.

By the mid-1970s, Angela was publishing her poetry in magazines and giving readings whenever the just-awakening Texas movimiento Chicano had need of a poet. Her poems won the 1972 Diploma de Benemerenza of the Academia Leonardo da Vinci in Rome, and in 1974 she took second place at the International Poetry Competition, also in Rome.

Her first slim book, "Arise, Chicano!" appeared in 1975. Her next book, "Chicano Poems: For the Barrio" (also 1975) exhibited one of her most distinctive talents — "code switching" between English and Spanish phrases within the same sentences, reflecting the common spoken idiom of South Texas. By the 1980s, De Hoyos was a very well-known poet, the subject of numerous dissertations in Europe and Latin America.

A self-taught graphic designer, she put these skills to good use when she later founded M&A Editions, a pioneering press that would publish the first works of poets such as Carmen Tafolla, Evangelina Vigil-PiÒon, Mia GarcÌa-Camarillo and Juan Tejeda.

Tejeda says that "Angela was like a mother to me, and to all of us. She was a tiny woman with a gigantic corazÛn." Vigil-PiÒÛn recalls Angela as "an extraordinary thinker with a heart full of passion and caring."

Carmen Tafolla writes: "We have truly lost one of the literary pioneers of San Antonio. She carried the art of poetry to its highest standard, opened doors for young writers, and shouldered the weight of so many social issues which she confronted in an activist and artful craft. . . . But Angela was impressive beyond just her poetry. It was her gentleness that impressed us. Her taking responsibility for the world, or the part of it she could change."

But her work was not done, even as the Chicano movement lost momentum. Throughout the 1990s, working with myself and my wife, Mary, we edited the two groundbreaking all-Latina anthologies, "Daughters of the Fifth Sun" (1995) and "°Floricanto SÌ!" (1998). Such was her energy and vision, we had no idea that she was already in her 70s. She was wise, caring, talented and ever energetic. Vaya con Dios, Angela.

Bryce Milligan is an author and the publisher/editor of Wings Press. He worked closely with De Hoyos for many years.