Reconstructing a Chicano/a Literary Heritage Hispanic Colonial Literature of the Southwest

Early literary works written in Spanish in what is today the Amer. SW have been largely excluded from the corpus of Amer. lit., yet these documents are the literary antecedents of contemporary Chicano & Chicana writing. This vol. examines texts ranging from Cabeza de Vaca's "Relacion" to Perez de Villagra's "Historia de la Nueva Mexico," written in Spanish during the Spanish colonial & Mexican periods. Using contemporary literary theory, Chicano scholars challenge commonly held perceptions of both Amer. lit. & contemporary Chicano lit. in order to demonstrate a certain continuity with each tradition. These essays conceptualize Chicano/a lit. in a new perspective & make a major contribution to both Chicano/a historiography & Amer. studies.