Notitas
SELECT COLUMNS FROM THE TUCSON CITIZEN
by
Alva B. Torres
Compiled by Lydia R. Otero
--------------------------
Paperback; 244 pages
Language: English
ISBN: 978-1734118025
Product Dimensions: 6 x .06 x 9 inches
Published: September 23, 2021
Price: $19.95
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Book Description
From 1984 to 1993, Alva B. Torres wrote close to 400 columns for the Tucson Citizen, one of Arizona’s major newspapers. In the journalistic world, she stands out as one of the first Mexican American women to write a weekly column for a key newspaper. In addition to recipes, Torres took this opportunity to share childhood memories and write about Mexican Americans who lived in Tucson, known as Tucsonenses. She also often made those active in local school programs, civic life, or operating small businesses the focus of her columns. Although never overtly political, Torres steadfastly reminded her readers that Mexican people and culture had always played a critical role in the city’s past. By focusing her columns on ordinary people and places, and highlighting local cultural practices, Torres garnered many fans and a wide readership. In addition to Torres’s insights about Mexican food, Notitas offers an exceptional selection of columns that provide readers the opportunity to learn more about Alva B. Torres as a person and her thriving social world.
Available at online retailers
such as Amazon.
About Alva Bustamante Torres
Alva B. Torres (1932–2026) spent much of her life making certain that Tucson did not forget the people and places that shaped the city.
In the late 1960s, as urban renewal demolished much of Tucson’s historic Mexican American barrio, Torres helped organize the Society for the Preservation of Tucson’s Plaza de la Mesilla. She became a leading voice in efforts to preserve La Placita and other places important to the history of Mexican Americans in Tucson.
Her work continued well beyond the battles over urban renewal. In 1975, the Tucson Advertising Club named her “Woman of the Year” for her historic preservation work and for chairing the Tucson Bicentennial Committee.
Between 1984 and 1993, Torres wrote nearly 400 weekly columns for the Tucson Citizen. She wrote about food, family, local businesses, community events, and the Tucsonenses whose lives rarely appeared in the historical record. Again and again, her columns reminded readers that Mexican people and culture were central to Tucson’s history.
In 2022, the City of Tucson named the plaza at the Tucson Convention Center the Alva Bustamante Torres Plaza. The plaza stands within the area transformed by the urban renewal project that Torres had challenged more than fifty years earlier.
Her columns live on in Notitas.
Alva Bustamante Torres, around 2018.
INTERESTED IN READING A FEW PAGES OF NOTITAS?
Click on the HERE for
a few sample pages.
HONORABLE MENTION
in the
Victor Villaseñor
Best Latino Focused Nonfiction Book Award
category on behalf of the
2022 International Latino Book Awards!
Alva B. Torres, photographed for Arizona Highways in 1986.
Book Endorsements
“In the late 1960s, my mother’s older sister Alva B. Torres fought to preserve La Placita de la Mesilla and inspired the creation of a City historical commission. Her boldness impacted me. When my tía began writing weekly columns, they evolved from recipes into glimpses of the Tucson that she knew before and after World War II. At first glance, her columns appear nostalgic but they reveal resistance to physical and cultural erasure. Tía Alva ended her columns in 1993 but her influence continued. Starting in 2000, as a columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, the subjects I wrote about were extensions of hers. I paid homage to those who would have gone unnoticed and championed individuals and families, many of them immigrants from south of the border who sought new lives in Tucson.”
—Ernesto “Neto” Portillo Jr,
Former Arizona Daily Star Columnist
“Whether they reminded us of our own past or connected us to a different time and culture, Alva Torres’s columns were a weekly gift to the Tucson community.”
—Carmen Prezelski,
Former Tucson Citizen Columnist
“At the heart of Alva Torres’s success as a community columnist is the fact that she is herself deeply and personally rooted in Tucson. She can express with utmost reverence why the culture and history of our city are its life blood. All in a style of writing that made you feel like you were sitting across a kitchen table with her for a spirited discussion.”
—Daniel Buckley,
Former Tucson Citizen Writer and Columnist
AZPM's "Arizona Spotlight" covered the Notitas book launch. Listen to the September 30, 2021 show. It starts at the 1:15 minute mark.
Remembering Alva B. Torres
Tribute by Ernesto Portillo Jr., published in the Arizona Daily Star, October 10, 2026.
