La Gringa

La Gringa is about a young woman’s search for her identity. Mari­a Elena Garcia goes to visit her family in Puerto Rico during the Christmas holidays and arrives with plans to connect with her homeland. Although this is her first trip to Puerto Rico, she has had an intense love for the island, and even majored in Puerto Rican Studies in college. Once Maria is in Puerto Rico, she realizes that Puerto Rico does not welcome her with open arms. The majority of the Puerto Ricans on the island consider her an American – a gringa – and Mari­a considers this a betrayal. If she’s a Puerto Rican in the United States and an American in Puerto Rico, Maria concludes that she is nobody everywhere. Her uncle, Manolo, spiritually teaches her that identity isn’t based on superficial and external definitions, but rather is an essence that she has had all along in her heart. This play is published in a bilingual edition; if you are applying for licensing rights, please state which version you wish to produce.

Because of their ethnic identity, Latinas sometimes face discrimination in the United States. Latinas are additionally oppressed because of their gender—because they are women, they hold a subordinate position in patriarchal Latino culture. The oppression of Latinas is maintained through various cultural mechanisms, which sustain power relations based on gender. This book gives special attention to the role of female cultural gatekeepers in novels by contemporary Latina writers. These gatekeepers enforce and perpetuate patriarchal cultural constraints onto future generations of Latinas. They construct and police female identity, including their own, through the use of idiomatic expressions, epithets, jokes, morality tales, and myths. The volume begins by examining Judith Ortiz Cofer's Silent Dancing, a work that clearly illustrates the role of gatekeepers in perpetuating gendered power relations. It then turns to the writings of Christina García, Julia Alvarez, Rosario Ferre, and Magali Garcia Ramis. Through their highly critical yet loving characterizations of female gatekeepers, these Latina writers suggest a different way of life for Latinas, a feminist way.

A gripping and subversive novel about the slippery nature of truth and the tragic consequences of American idealism … Leonora Gelb came to Peru to make a difference. A passionate and idealistic Stanford grad, she left a life of privilege to fight poverty and oppression, but her beliefs are tested when she falls in with violent revolutionaries. While death squads and informants roam the streets and suspicion festers among the comrades, Leonora plans a decisive act of protest—until her capture in a bloody government raid, and a sham trial that sends her to prison for life. Ten years later, Andres—a failed novelist turned expat—is asked to write a magazine profile of “La Leo.” As his personal life unravels, he struggles to understand Leonora, to reconstruct her involvement with the militants, and to chronicle Peru’s tragic history. At every turn he’s confronted by violence and suffering, and by the consequences of his American privilege. Is the real Leonora an activist or a terrorist? Cold-eyed conspirator or naïve puppet? And who is he to decide? In this powerful and timely new novel, Andrew Altschul maps the blurred boundaries between fact and fiction, author and text, resistance and extremism. Part coming-of-age story and part political thriller, The Gringa asks what one person can do in the face of the world’s injustice.

The deciphering of the Da Vinci Code revealed Jade Stewart--the first female president of the United States--as the descendent of the Davidic Dynasty. Her existence threatens the legitimacy of Christian orthodoxy, and she is anathema to the Christian fundamentalists. Enemies threaten to blackmail her with evidence that she had an abortion as a teenager.

San Pedro, a visionary and hallucinogenic brew derived from the mescaline-based Trichocereus pachanoi or 'cactus of vision', is one of Peru’s most important and powerful teacher plants. For thousands of years this brew has been drunk by spiritual seekers and those who need healing, and has cured a wide variety of physical problems, including cancer, diabetes, paralysis and pneumonia, and emotional and psychological issues such as alcoholism, heartbreak and grief. Those who work with it say San Pedro brings us closer to God. There has been no book specifically written about the shamanic use of San Pedro…until now. This important volume is therefore a first of its kind. In it, Ross Heaven looks at the healing and ceremonial usage of San Pedro, with interviews and case studies from shamans and participants who offer their remarkable stories of instant cures and spiritual insights.

This volume traces the modern critical and performance history of this play, one of Shakespeare's most-loved and most-performed comedies. The essay focus on such modern concerns as feminism, deconstruction, textual theory, and queer theory.

WINNER OF A CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE AWARD 2019 The political violence that erupted towards the end of the twentieth century between the Peruvian state and militant group `Shining Path' left an indelible mark on the country that resonates even today. This study explores representations of the insurgency on screen, and asks what these tell us about the relationship between state, fiction cinema and identity in Peru. In the process, Sarah Barrow highlights the Peruvian experience as a paradigm for the wider study of film-making in societies faced with violence and terrorism. This book provides in-depth analyses of the pivotal films from the 1980s through to the present day that interpret the events, characters and consequences of the bloody conflict. Setting the films in the context of a time of turbulent transition for both Peruvian society and cinema - addressing developments in film policy and production - it reveals the attempts by filmmakers to reflect, shape, define and contest the identity of a fractured population. By interrogating important themes such as memory, trauma and cultural responses to terrorism, chapters explore local perception of nationhood, and highlight links to other Latin American cinemas and global issues. Featuring discussions of the work of Francisco Lombardi, Marianne Eyde, Fabrizio Aguilar and Josue Mendez, amongst others, this detailed investigation of the growing success and political importance of the industry's output traces the complexities of modern Peruvian history.

The folksongs of Texas's Mexican population pulsate with the lives of folk heroes, gringos, smugglers, generals, jailbirds, and beautiful women. In his cancionero, or songbook, Américo Paredes presents sixty-six of these songs in bilingual text—along with their music, notes on tempo and performance, and discography. Manuel Peña's new foreword situates these songs within the main currents of Mexican American music.