Chicanos and Chicanas, or Mexican Americans, are deeply rooted in the cultures of African, European, and Native American groups. The richness of Chicano culture is especially evident in such folklore genres as myths, tales, legends, traditional beliefs, songs, games, and riddles. Written especially for high school students and general readers, this book is an introductory guide to Chicano folklore. It defines and classifies the folklore, provides numerous examples and texts, discusses the presence of Chicano folklore in literature and popular culture, and reviews scholarship and criticism. Written expressly for high school students and general readers, the volume classifies and defines Chicano folklore and provides background information on the historical contexts in which Chicanos have thrived. It also provides numerous examples and texts from various folklore genres and discusses the importance of Chicano folklore to literature and popular culture. In addition, it reviews scholarship and critical approaches and closes with a bibliography and glossary. This book will help students appreciate America's cultural diversity as they learn about the fascinating traditions of this important ethnic group.

This interdisciplinary book explores human rights in the Americas from multiple perspectives and fields. Taking 1492 as a point of departure, the text explores Eurocentric historiographies of human rights and offer a more complete understanding of the genealogy of the human rights discourse and its many manifestations in the Americas. The essays use a variety of approaches to reveal the larger contexts from which they emerge, providing a cross-sectional view of subjects, countries, methodologies and foci explicitly dedicated toward understanding historical factors and circumstances that have shaped human rights nationally and internationally within the Americas. The chapters explore diverse cultural, philosophical, political and literary expressions where human rights discourses circulate across the continent taking into consideration issues such as race, class, gender, genealogy and nationality. While acknowledging the ongoing centrality of the nation, the volume promotes a shift in the study of the Americas as a dynamic transnational space of conflict, domination, resistance, negotiation, complicity, accommodation, dialogue, and solidarity where individuals, nations, peoples, institutions, and intellectual and political movements share struggles, experiences, and imaginaries. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of InterAmerican studies and those from all disciplines interested in Human Rights.

This interdisciplinary book explores human rights in the Americas from multiple perspectives and fields. Taking 1492 as a point of departure, the text explores Eurocentric historiographies of human rights and offer a more complete understanding of the genealogy of the human rights discourse and its many manifestations in the Americas. The essays use a variety of approaches to reveal the larger contexts from which they emerge, providing a cross-sectional view of subjects, countries, methodologies and foci explicitly dedicated toward understanding historical factors and circumstances that have shaped human rights nationally and internationally within the Americas. The chapters explore diverse cultural, philosophical, political and literary expressions where human rights discourses circulate across the continent taking into consideration issues such as race, class, gender, genealogy and nationality. While acknowledging the ongoing centrality of the nation, the volume promotes a shift in the study of the Americas as a dynamic transnational space of conflict, domination, resistance, negotiation, complicity, accommodation, dialogue, and solidarity where individuals, nations, peoples, institutions, and intellectual and political movements share struggles, experiences, and imaginaries. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of InterAmerican studies and those from all disciplines interested in Human Rights.

This is a collection of ten absorbing stories, rich in setting, tense in action, and warm in their sympathy with the human comedy. The main interest in all the stories is the comedy or tragedy in the lives of the people, but each story has its own enveloping action of excitement and color. Pervading the whole is an authentic folk life--Christian and pagan marvelously mixed.
Originally published in 1945.
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This innovative collection, featuring three plays by Carlos Morton, spans five centuries of Mexican and Mexican American history. In the tradition of "teatro campesino," these plays present provocative revisions of historical events.

The first play, "La Malinche," challenges the historical record of the tragic clash between Indians and Spaniards. The near-mythical La Malinche, who betrayed her country for love of Hernan Cortez but was then betrayed by him, is freed from the bonds of history to have her vengeance. She saves her legacy and destroys the legacy of the conquistador. In the second play, "Dreaming on a Sunday in the Alameda," characters from a mural by painter Diego Rivera come to life to depict four centuries of Mexican history. Among these, Frida Kahlo, Rivera's wife, finally steps out of his shadow as a woman and artist in her own right. "Esperanza," a libretto for an opera, tells the story of Mexican miners who labored in twentieth-century Silver City, New Mexico. Based on the classic movie "Salt of the Earth," this play deftly portrays the crisis that foretold the rise of the Chicano movement.

..". provides a valuable service of not only gathering and presenting from 5,000 song texts a wide variety of ballads with full translation but also placing them all in a succinct historical context extending from the Mexican War to the present." Journal of American Ethnic History

..". a] stunning achievement, not only because it is an intelligent and comprehensive study of Mexican immigrant ballads, but because analysis gives way to, steps aside respectfully for, a multitude of immigrants who sing their experiences of crossing the border into the U.S. with astonishing clarity and historical perspicacity." Western Folklore

"Herrera-Sobek s folk-song collection is impressive, as are her English translations crisp and unstilted." MultiCultural Review

" Herrera-Sobek s] well-written book provides historians, ethnomusicologists, sociologists, and other scholars with a case study that demonstrates how valuable song lyrics can be in their studies. Strongly recommended to humanists and social scientists." Choice

"Supported with photographs, full documentation and other scholarly devices, this is a solid work on an unusual topic." Sing Out

Northward Bound traces Mexican emigration to the United States from 1848 to 1991 through the lyrics of Mexican ballads (corridos) and contemporary popular songs (canciones). These autobiographical songs reflect the relationship between individual experience and the history-making process."