Songs My Mother Sang To Me

Motivated by a love of her Mexican American heritage, Patricia Preciado Martin set out to document the lives and memories of the women of her mother's and grandmother's eras; for while the role of women in Southwest has begun to be chronicled, that of Hispanic women largely remains obscure. In Songs My Mother Sang to Me, she has preserved the oral histories of many of these women before they have been lost or forgotten. Martin's quest took her to ranches, mining towns, and cities throughout southern Arizona, for she sought to document as varied an experience of the contributions of Mexican American women as possible. The interviews covered family history and genealogy, childhood memories, secular and religious traditions, education, work and leisure, environment and living conditions, rites of passage, and personal values. Each of the ten oral histories reflects not only the spontaneity of the interview and personality of each individual, but also the friendship that grew between Martin and her subjects. Songs My Mother Sang to Me collects voices not often heard and brings to print accounts of social change never previously recorded. These women document more than the details of their own lives; in relating the histories of their ancestors and communities, they add to our knowledge of the culture and contributions of Mexican American people in the Southwest.

In 1904, New York nuns brought forty Irish orphans to a remote Arizona mining camp, to be placed with Catholic families. The Catholic families were Mexican, as was the majority of the population. Soon the town's Anglos, furious at this "interracial" transgression, formed a vigilante squad that kidnapped the children and nearly lynched the nuns and the local priest. The Catholic Church sued to get its wards back, but all the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled in favor of the vigilantes. The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction tells this disturbing and dramatic tale to illuminate the creation of racial boundaries along the Mexican border. Clifton/Morenci, Arizona, was a "wild West" boomtown, where the mines and smelters pulled in thousands of Mexican immigrant workers. Racial walls hardened as the mines became big business and whiteness became a marker of superiority. These already volatile race and class relations produced passions that erupted in the "orphan incident." To the Anglos of Clifton/Morenci, placing a white child with a Mexican family was tantamount to child abuse, and they saw their kidnapping as a rescue. Women initiated both sides of this confrontation. Mexican women agreed to take in these orphans, both serving their church and asserting a maternal prerogative; Anglo women believed they had to "save" the orphans, and they organized a vigilante squad to do it. In retelling this nearly forgotten piece of American history, Linda Gordon brilliantly recreates and dissects the tangled intersection of family and racial values, in a gripping story that resonates with today's conflicts over the "best interests of the child."

Using innovative methodologies and theories to rethink American Indian history, this book challenges previous scholarship about Native Americans and their communities.

This is Marlon Brando’s own story, and his reason for telling it is best revealed in his own words: “I have always considered my life a private affair and the business of no one beyond my family and those I love. Except for moral and political issues that aroused in me a desire to speak out, I have done my utmost throughout my life, for the sake of my children and myself, to remain silent. . . . But now, in my seventieth year, I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.” To date there have been over a dozen books written about Marlon Brando, and almost all of them have been inaccurate, based on hearsay, sensationalist or prurient in tone. Now, at last, fifty years after his first appearance onstage in New York City, the actor has told his life story, with the help of Robert Lindsey. The result is an extraordinary book, at once funny, moving, absorbing, ribald, angry, self-deprecating and completely frank account of the career, both on-screen and off, of the greatest actor of our time. Anyone who has ever enjoyed a Brando film will relish this book. Please note: this edition does not include photos.

This book illustrates the social change that took place in the lives of women during the Progressive Era. The political and social change of the Progressive Era brought conflicts over labor, women's rights, consumerism, religion, sexuality, and many other aspects of American life. As Americans argued and fought over suffrage and political reform, vast changes were also taking place in women's professional, material, personal, recreational, and intellectual lives. In this installment of Greenwood's Daily Life through History series, award-winning author Kirstin Olsen brings to life the everyday experiences, priorities, and challenges of women in America's Progressive Era (ca. 1890–1920). From the barnstorming "bloomer girls" who showed America that women could play baseball to film star, tycoon, and co-founder of the Academy of Motion Pictures Mary Pickford, and from the highly skilled "Hello Girls"—telephone operators who helped win World War I—to the remarkable journalist and civil rights activist Ida Wells-Barnett, women led both famous and ordinary lives that were shaped by and helped to drive the dramatic social change taking place during the Progressive Era. All of this and more is described in this book through topical sections as well as stories and profiles that reveal to readers the daily lives of America's women who lived during the Progressive Era. Readers will benefit from Olsen's characteristically sharp eye for detail, power of description, and breadth of historical knowledge.

This is a book of poetry, a variety of rhyming sonnets created according to the concept of aesthetics specific to the author. They tell of life, belief, history, friends, beauty, family - as seen from the heart of that beautiful place called New Zealand.

Enter the magical world of La Llorona with New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard. After a childhood filled with heartbreak, Irene, a talented artist, finds herself in a small Central American village where she checks into a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel called La Llorona at the base of a volcano. The Bird Hotel tells the story of this young American who, after suffering tragedy, restores and runs La Llorona. Along the way we meet a rich assortment of characters who live in the village or come to stay at the hotel. With a mystery at its center and filled with warmth, drama, romance, humor, pop culture, and a little magical realism, The Bird Hotel has all the hallmarks of a Joyce Maynard novel that have made her a leading voice of her generation. The Bird Hotel is a big, sweeping story spanning four decades, offering lyricism as well as whimsy. While the world New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard brings to life on the page is rendered from her imagination, it’s one informed by the more than twenty years of which she has spent a significant amount of her time in a small Mayan indigenous village in Guatemala. As the New York Times said, "[Maynard] has an unswerving eye, a sharply perked ear, and the ability to keep her readers hanging on her words." People Magazine said of her: "Maynard’s spare prose packs a rich emotional punch.”