New Mexico cultural envoy Juan Estevan Arellano, to whom this work is dedicated, writes that querencia "is that which gives us a sense of place, that which anchors us to the land, that which makes us a unique people, for it implies a deeply rooted knowledge of place, and for that reason we respect it as our home." This sentiment is echoed in the foreword by Rudolfo Anaya, in which he writes that "querencia is love of home, love of place." This collection of both deeply personal reflections and carefully researched studies explores the New Mexico homeland through the experiences and perspectives of Chicanx and indigenous/Genizaro writers and scholars from across the state. The importance of querencia for each contributor is apparent in their work and their ongoing studies, which have roots in the culture, history, literature, and popular media of New Mexico. Be inspired and enlightened by these essays and discover the history and belonging that is querencia.

"Levi Romero is a strange kind of wizard. He can walk up a New Mexico arroyo and come back with a mysterious object full of quotidian magic. Like a rusted tobacco can the grand-fathers used to roll their smokes. And when you pry open the lid, you can hear their laughter and gossip coming out. That's what he does in poem after poem. I read his work and I learn again how to love this life."--Luis Alberto Urrea

Through familiar details--leaking faucets and lowriders, "chicharrones" and chicken coops--Levi Romero remembers "familia, comunidad, " and "tradiciones" from his upbringing in northern New Mexico's Embudo Valley. Alongside his training and jobs in the building trades and the architectural profession, and now a teacher, his writing has maintained and nurtured his connection to the unique people and land he knows so well and that have seldom been represented in American poetry.

Un lugar sagrado, a sacred place where two or more are gathered in the name of community, can be found almost anywhere and yet it is elusive: a charro arena behind a rock quarry, on the pilgrimage trail to Chimayo, a curandero's shrine in South Texas, or at a binational Mass along the border. Sagrado is neither a search for identity nor a quest for a homeland but an affirmation of an ever-evolving cultural landscape. Embedded at the heart of this remarkable book, in which prose, photographs, and poems complement each other, is a photopoetic journey across the Chicano Southwest.