The Farthest Home Is in an Empire of Fire

The Farthest Home Is in an Empire of Fire
Author: John Phillip Santos
Publisher: Penguin Group
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2011-03-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0143118730

"Wonderful...a book that connects us to the global story of ourselves." -Sandra Cisneros In this beautifully written, highly original work, John Phillip Santos- the author of Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation-creates a virtuosic meditation on ancestry and origins. Weaving together a poetic mix of family remembrance, personal odyssey, conquest history, and magical realism, Santos recounts his quest to find the missing chronicle of his mother's family, who arrived in southern Texas in the 1620s. As Santos traces their roots to northern Spain, he re-imagines the way we think about identity. The result is a uniquely engaging adventure in the frontier between self and family, past and present, at a time when breakthroughs in genetics are changing our window on history.

The Farthest Home Is in an Empire of Fire

The Farthest Home Is in an Empire of Fire
Author: John Phillip Santos
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101190035

A family's epic origins in the hinterlands of Mexico that became Texas-and earlier, in Iberia In his acclaimed 1999 memoir Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation, John Phillip Santos told the story of one Mexican family- his father's-set within the larger story of Mexico itself. In this beautifully written new book, he tells of how another family-this time, his mother's-erased and forgot over time their ancient origins in Spain. Every family has a forgotten tale of where it came from. Who is driven to tell it and why? Weaving together a highly original mix of autobiography, conquest history, elegy, travel, family remembrance, and time travelling narration, Santos offers an unforgettable testimony to this calling and describes a lifelong quest to find the missing chronicle of his mother's family, one that takes him to various locations in South Texas and Mexico, to New York City, to Spain, and ultimately to the Middle East. Blending genres brilliantly, Santos raises profound questions about whether we can ever find our true homeland and what we can learn from our treasured, shared cultural legacies.

Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation

Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation
Author: John Phillip Santos
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2000-08-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1440679193

Finalist for the National Book Award!In this beautifully wrought memoir, award-winning writer John Philip Santos weaves together dream fragments, family remembrances, and Chicano mythology, reaching back into time and place to blend the story of one Mexican family with the soul of an entire people. The story unfolds through a pageant of unforgettable family figures: from Madrina--touched with epilepsy and prophecy ever since, as a girl, she saw a dying soul leave its body--to Teofilo, who was kidnapped as an infant and raised by the Kikapu Indians of Northern Mexico. At the heart of the book is Santos' search for the meaning of his grandfather's suicide in San Antonio, Texas, in 1939. Part treasury of the elders, part elegy, part personal odyssey, this is an immigration tale and a haunting family story that offers a rich, magical view of Mexican-American culture.

Outside the Margins

Outside the Margins
Author: Robert Bonazzi
Publisher: Wings Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2015
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1609404785

"A collection of literary criticism by one of the major Texas critics. The literature covered includes mainly Texas, the Southwest, and Latin America, from 1980 to 2015"--

Bridging Cultures

Bridging Cultures
Author: Harriett D. Romo
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2021-08-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1623499763

Borderlands: they stretch across national boundaries, and they create a unique space that extends beyond the international boundary. They extend north and south of what we think of as the actual “border,” encompassing even the urban areas of San Antonio, Texas, and Monterrey, Nueva León, Mexico, affirming shared identities and a sense of belonging far away from the geographical boundary. In Bridging Cultures: Reflections on the Heritage Identity of the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, editors Harriett Romo and William Dupont focus specifically on the lower reaches of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo as it exits the mountains and meanders across a coastal plain. Bringing together perspectives of architects, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, educators, political scientists, geographers, and creative writers who span and encompass the border, its four sections explore the historical and cultural background of the region; the built environment of the transnational border region and how border towns came to look as they do; shared systems of ideas, beliefs, values, knowledge, norms of behavior, and customs—the way of life we think of as Borderlands culture; and how border security, trade and militarization, and media depictions impact the inhabitants of the Borderlands. Romo and Dupont present the complexity of the Texas-Mexico Borderlands culture and historical heritage, exploring the tangible and intangible aspects of border culture, the meaning and legacy of the Borderlands, its influence on relationships and connections, and how to manage change in a region evolving dramatically over the past five centuries and into the future.

300 Years of San Antonio and Bexar County

300 Years of San Antonio and Bexar County
Author: Claudia R. Guerra
Publisher: Trinity University Press
Total Pages: 819
Release: 2018-06-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1595348506

300 Years of San Antonio & Bexar County captures the iconic stories, moments, people, and places that define one of the oldest communities in the United States. A collection of diverse authors joined forces to produce this richly illustrated and complexly woven thematic telling of the city’s history. From its earliest legacy as home to many indigenous peoples to its municipal founding by the Canary Islanders, a convergence of people from across the globe have settled, sacrificed, and successfully shaped the culture of San Antonio. The result is a 21st-century community that strives to balance diverse heritage with a vibrant economy thanks to stories from the past that provide lessons for the future.

Thinking en español

Thinking en español
Author: Jesús Rosales
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2014-11-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0816598630

Thinking en español captures conversations with leading Chicana and Chicano literary critics. This unique book consists of interviews with founding members of Chicano criticism conducted by the author, Jesús Rosales, who, through his conversations with leaders such as Luis Leal, María Herrera-Sobek, Tey Diana Rebolledo, and Juan Rodríguez, shows the path of criticism from 1848 to the present. The twelve critics interviewed for this project share certain characteristics. For each one, Mexico plays an essential role in his or her personal and academic background, and each is bilingual and bicultural, having received formal literary education in Spanish graduate programs. As products of the working class, each scholar here shares a sense of social consciousness and commitment that lends an urgency to their desire to promote Chicano literature and culture at the local, regional, national, and international levels. They serve as a source of inspiration and commitment for future generations of scholars of Chicano literature and leave a lasting legacy of their own. Thinking en español legitimizes Chicana/o criticism as an established discipline, and documents the works of some of the most important critics of Chicano literature at the turn of the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. This timely book immortalizes literary historical figures and documents the trajectory of Chicano criticism.

Moctezuma's Table

Moctezuma's Table
Author: Norma E. Cantú
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2010
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1603443134

After Rubén

After Rubén
Author: Francisco Aragón
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1597098167

This collection of poetry, prose, and translations explores Latinx and queer identity through homage to the great Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío. After Rubén unfolds a decades-long journey braiding together the personal, the political and the historical. Throughout the text, acclaimed poet Francisco Aragon intersperses English-language translations and riffs of the Spanish-language master Rubén Darío. Whether it’s biting portraits of public figures, or nuanced sketches of his father, Francisco Aragón has assembled his most expansive collection to date, evoking his native San Francisco, but also imagining ancestral spaces in Nicaragua. Readers will encounter pieces that splice lines from literary forebearers, a moving elegy to a sibling, a surprising epistle from the grave. In short, After Rubén presents a complex and fascinating conversation surrounding poetry in the Americas—above all as it relates to Latinx and queer poetics.

Border Folk Balladeers

Border Folk Balladeers
Author: Roberto Cantú
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2018-07-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1527514366

Américo Paredes distinguished himself as a journalist, novelist, short story writer, poet, folklorist, and as Professor of English and Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. Admired as one of the inspiring founders of Mexican American Studies in colleges and universities across the United States, Paredes’ life-long interest in Mexican-American history and culture motivated him during his early years to collect corridos from farmers and villagers living on the Lower Rio Grande, resulting in his pioneering book “With His Pistol in His Hand”: A Border Ballad and Its Hero (1958), and in other books on folklore, poetry, and narrative fiction. Border Folk Balladeers: Critical Studies on Américo Paredes is a book of significant value to scholars, teachers, students, and to the general reader interested in the history and culture of Mexicans and Mexican Americans born on both sides of the Mexico-US border. It contains a full-length introduction and eleven essays written exclusively for this volume by scholars in the fields of folklore, literary criticism, and critical race theory, and who are renowned authorities on the work of Américo Paredes. Grouped into three sections, this book includes studies on theories of the Texas Modern; the Latin American critical tradition; border writing in world literatures; ethnography in minority communities; an analysis of Texas-Mexican border jokelore; and, among other critical studies, a comprehensive probe into the international drug traffic in the Mexico-US border, with an emphasis on narcoballads and narconovels, the contemporary offshoots of the Texas-Mexican border corrido.