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Nuevomexicano Cultural Legacy: Forms, Agencies and Discourse. Edited by Francisco A. Lomeli, Victor A. Sorell and Genaro M. Padilla. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002. 296 pp. Illus. £28.50 (hbk). ISBN 0-8263-2224-7
Pueblo Pottery Figurines: The Expression of Cultural Perceptions in Clay. By Patricia F. Lange. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.162 pp. Illus. £36.50 (hbk). ISBN 0-8263-2799-0
Nuevomexicano Cultural Legacy is a collection of essays that arose from the 1994 Rockefeller Seminar Conference "Hispanic Expressive Culture and Contemporary Discourse." The papers include several whose gestation began at least seven years earlier. Here they have been edited by three of the participants for inclusion within an established university press series on New Mexico. The thirteen chapters and introduction offer insight into the Hispanic legacy of New Mexico, but also into the southwestern United States and Northern Mexico more generally. Exploring key individuals, groups, symbols, and practices that have become emblematic of the state, in each case the subject is approached both from a disciplinary perspective and from within the developing conventions of Chicano and Hispanic studies in the United States. These interdisciplinary ethnic studies fields have grown in importance over the past thirty years, reflecting the importance of Chicano, Hispanic, and American Indian culture in the region.
For a European audience, some explanation of terms may be useful. "Hispanic," in a New World context, refers to individuals and communities using, or inflected by a history of use of, the Spanish language, although not necessarily exclusively or...