California State University, Los Angeles

Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She has won... both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant. Butler was born and raised in Pasadena, California. Since her father Laurice, a shoeshiner, died when she was a baby, Butler was raised by her grandmother and her mother , who worked as a maid in order to support the family. Butler grew up in a struggling, racially mixed neighborhood. According to the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Butler was "an introspective, only child in a strict Baptist household" and "was drawn early to [science fiction] magazines such as Amazing, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Galaxy and soon began reading all the science fiction classics." Octavia Jr., nicknamed Junie, was paralytically shy and a daydreamer, and was later diagnosed as being dyslexic. She began writing at the age of 10 "to escape loneliness and boredom"; she was 12 when she began a lifelong interest in science fiction.
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Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt.... Martin Castillo in Miami Vice, teacher Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver, patriarch Abraham Quintanilla in the film Selena, Detective Gaff in Blade Runner, and narrator El Pachuco in both the stage and film versions of Zoot Suit. In 1988, Olmos was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for the film Stand and Deliver. He has also been a longtime pioneer for more diversified roles and images of Latinos in the U.S. media besides from his most notable roles/work by him starring, directing and producing films, Made for TV Movies and TV shows such as American Me, The Burning Season, My Family/Mi Familia, 12 Angry Men, The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca, Walkout, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and American Family: Journey of Dreams. Olmos was born Edward Olmos in Los Angeles, California, where he was raised, the son of Eleanor and Pedro Olmos, who was a welder and mail carrier. His father was a Mexican immigrant and his mother was Mexican American.
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