Was it a spectre from the past, some Aztec revenant that had inspired the "Black Widow" to kill her husband? Or did these chilling murders have more to do with the rights of property and inheritance, and mere greed? Who better than Gloria Damasco, that indomitable detective with a flair for clairvoyance, to unravel this intricate and pulsing plot, which winds its way from an exotic Day of the Dead celebration in San Francisco to the even more exotic sites and customs of Tepozotlan. Gloria soon finds herself in an uncanny struggle to rescue the soul of Licia, the Black Widow, who believes herself possessed by the spirit of La Malinche, the eternally condemned slayer of her mixed-blood offspring during the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Part thriller, part exploration of myth and history, Black Widow's Wardrobe is a page-turner.

In California, Chicana detective Gloria Damasco investigates the death of a strike leader who was involved in a grape boycott. Officially the death was suicide, but Damasco thinks murder more likely. By the author of Eulogy for a Brown Angel.

Chicana detective Gloria Damasco has a ñdark gift,î an extrasensory prescience that underscores her investigations and compels her to solve numerous cases. This time, the recurring vision haunting her dreams contains two pairs of dark eyes watching her in the night, a phantom horse and rider, and the voice of a woman pleading for help. But most disquieting of all is GloriaÍs sensation of being trapped underwater, unable to free herself, unable to breathe. When Gloria is asked to help the owners of the Oro Blanco winery in CaliforniaÍs Shenandoah Valley, she finds herself on the road to the legendary Gold Country. And she canÍt help but wonder if the ever-more persistent visions might foreshadow this new case that involves the theft of a family heirloom, a pair of antique diamond and emerald earrings rumored to have belonged to MexicoÍs Empress Carlota. Soon Gloria learns that thereÍs more to the case than stolen jewelry. Mysterious accidents, threatening anonymous notes, the disappearance of a woman believed to be a saint, and a ghost horse thought to have belonged to notorious bandit JoaquÕn Murrieta are some of the pieces Gloria struggles to fit together. A womanÍs gruesome murder and the discovery of a group of young women from Mexico being held against their will in an abandoned house send Gloria on a fateful journey to a WitchesÍ Sabbath to find the final pieces of the puzzle before someone else is killed. Corpi weaves the rich cultural history of CaliforniaÍs Gold Country with a suspenseful mystery in this latest installment in the Gloria Damasco Mystery series.

In 1970 in East Los Angeles, Gloria Damasco, a feminist political activist from Oakland, and her best friend Luisa are attending a march in support of the Chicano Moratorium. After the protest turns into a riot, Gloria and Luisa discover the dead body of a 4-year old boy named Michael David Cisneros; he has been strangled and his body defiled. Working unofficially with the lead LAPD homicide investigator, Gloria and Luisa become acquainted with the dead boy's family, who are also in town from Oakland for the march. Then the key witness, a young gang member, is also murdered and the trail to the boy's killer goes cold. The story then shifts to the San Francisco Bay Area and fast-forwards to 1988. Gloria's husband, who discouraged her from continuing the investigation, has died and her daughter is grown, but she is still haunted by little Michael David's murder. Worried about Gloria's state of mind, her mother hires private investigator Justin Escobar to solve the mystery once and for all. Together, Gloria and Justin uncover a trail of international conspiracy and family tragedies before they finally learn the truth behind the 18-year old murder.

Eulogy for a Brown Angel began a new chapter in the mystery genre with the creation of the first Chicana detective in American literature. Now available for the first time in paperback, readers can discover, or rediscover, Lucha CorpiÍs dynamic detective Gloria Damasco in the classic novel that started it all. A Chicano Civil Rights March has been disrupted by the Los Angeles police, resulting in the gruesome death of a prominent reporter. The tear gas has barely settled when a small, defiled body is left on a street in Los Angeles. A feisty political activist finds the murdered child and begins an investigation that will lead her on a trail of international conspiracy and bloody vengeance. Before long, two other people are dead, and Gloria is determined to piece the mystery together, no matter how long the search may last. Adding to the mystery is Gloria DamascoÍs dark gift, a puzzling extra-sensory awareness that forces her to confront situations in which solutions demand more than reason and logic. Eulogy for a Brown Angel is a fast-paced and suspenseful novel, packed with an assortment of interesting characters. A member of the international writersÍ circle Sisters in Crime, Lucha Corpi brings the intrigue to a hard-hitting conclusion in the picturesque Wine Country of Northern California.

Over the past several decades, Mexican Americans have made an indelible mark on American culture through the music of bands such as Santana and Los Lobos, films such as Zoot Suit, and a wide range of literature, such as Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street. Now Charles Tatum introduces students to these and other forms of artistic expression in the first volume to provide a wide-ranging overview of Chicano popular culture. Tatum explores the broad and complex arena of popular culture among Americans of Mexican descent and explains what popular culture can tell them about themselves. Reviewing a range of expressive arts, from traditional forms to electronic media, he explains the differences and similarities between Chicano popular culture and that of other ethnic groups or of Anglo society and shows how Chicano arts reflect a people's traditions and heritage. The book's coverage focuses on five areas of popular culture. It explores - Mexican American and Chicano music from the sixteenth century to the present day; - cinema, focusing on Chicano films of the past three decades; - newspapers, radio, and television, explaining the interrelationship between these media; - literature, emphasizing fiction, theater, and poetry of the last thirty years; - and fiestas, celebrations, and art, including mural and graffiti art. Tatum provides a brief overview of Mexican American social history, paying particular attention to changing cultural perspectives over the past 150 years and the evolution of el movimiento chicano. He also introduces theories of popular culture and makes them accessible to students, enabling them to better understand the material covered in the text. No other book offers such a wide-ranging introduction to these cultural expressions of Mexican Americans today. Chicano Popular Culture invites readers to share the excitement of these vital arts and, through them, to learn more about the uniqueness of America's fastest-growing minority. Chicano Popular Culture and Mexican Americans and Health are the first volumes in the series The Mexican American Experience, a cluster of modular texts designed to provide greater flexibility in undergraduate education. Each book deals with a single topic concerning the Mexican American population. Instructors can create a semester-length course from any combination of volumes, or may choose to use one or two volumes to complement other texts.

The literary culture of the Spanish-speaking Southwest has its origins in a harsh frontier environment marked by episodes of intense cultural conflict, and much of the literature seeks to capture the epic experiences of conquest and settlement. The Chicano literary canon has evolved rapidly over four centuries to become one of the most dynamic, growing, and vital parts of what we know as contemporary U.S. literature. In this comprehensive examination of Chicano and Chicana literature, Charles M. Tatum brings a new and refreshing perspective to the ethnic identity of Mexican Americans. From the earliest sixteenth-century chronicles of the Spanish Period, to the poetry and narrative fiction of the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, and then to the flowering of all literary genres in the post–Chicano Movement years, Chicano/a literature amply reflects the hopes and aspirations as well as the frustrations and disillusionments of an often marginalized population. Exploring the work of Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, Luis Alberto Urrea, and many more, Tatum examines the important social, historical, and cultural contexts in which the writing evolved, paying special attention to the Chicano Movement and the flourishing of literary texts during the 1960s and early 1970s. Chapters provide an overview of the most important theoretical and critical approaches employed by scholars over the past forty years and survey the major trends and themes in contemporary autobiography, memoir, fiction, and poetry. The most complete and up-to-date introduction to Chicana/o literature available, this book will be an ideal reference for scholars of Hispanic and American literature. Discussion questions and suggested reading included at the end of each chapter are especially suited for classroom use.

In 1638, a small book of no more than 92 pages in octavo was published “appresso Gioanne Calleoni” under the title “Discourse on the State of the Jews and in particular those dwelling in the illustrious city of Venice.” It was dedicated to the Doge of Venice and his counsellors, who are labelled “lovers of Truth.” The author of the book was a certain Simone (Simḥa) Luzzatto, a native of Venice, where he lived and died, serving as rabbi for over fifty years during the course of the seventeenth century. Luzzatto’s political thesis is simple and, at the same time, temerarious, if not revolutionary: Venice can put an end to its political decline, he argues, by offering the Jews a monopoly on overseas commercial activity. This plan is highly recommendable because the Jews are “wellsuited for trade,” much more so than others (such as “foreigners,” for example). The rabbi opens his argument by recalling that trade and usury are the only occupations permitted to Jews. Within the confines of their historical situation, the Venetian Jews became particularly skilled at trade with partners from the Eastern Mediterranean countries. Luzzatto’s argument is that this talent could be put at the service of the Venetian government in order to maintain – or, more accurately, recover – its political importance as an intermediary between East and West. He was the first to define the role of the Jews on the basis of their economic and social functions, disregarding the classic categorisation of Judaism’s alleged privileged religious status in world history. Nonetheless, going beyond the socio-economic arguments of the book, it is essential to point out Luzzatto’s resort to sceptical strategies in order to plead in defence of the Venetian Jews. It is precisely his philosophical and political scepticism that makes Luzzatto’s texts so unique. This edition aims to grant access to his works and thought to English-speaking readers and scholars. By approaching his texts from this point of view, the editors hope to open a new path in research into Jewish culture and philosophy that will enable other scholars to develop new directions and new perspectives, stressing the interpenetration between Jews and the surrounding Christian and secular cultures.

"A delightful novel...impossible to resist." —Barbara Kingsolver, Los Angeles Times Book Review Sofia and her fated daughters, Fe, Esperanza, Caridad, and la Loca, endure hardship and enjoy love in the sleepy New Mexico hamlet of Tome, a town teeming with marvels where the comic and the horrific, the real and the supernatural, reside.

Chicano Popular Culture, Second Edition provides a fascinating, timely, and accessible introduction to Chicano cultural expression and representation. New sections discuss music, with an emphasis on hip-hop and rap; cinema and filmmakers; media, including the contributions of Jorge Ramos and María Hinojosa; and celebrations and other popular traditions, including quinceañeras, cincuentañeras, and César Chávez Day. This edition features: Chicanas in the Chicano Movement and Chicanos since the Chicano Movement New material on popular authors such as Denise Chávez, Alfredo Vea, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Juan Felipe Herrera Suggested Readings to supplement each chapter Theoretical approaches to popular culture, including the perspectives of Norma Cantú, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Pancho McFarland, Michelle Habell-Pallán, and Víctor Sorell With clear examples, an engaging writing style, and helpful discussion questions, Chicano Popular Culture, Second Edition invites readers to discover and enjoy Mexican American popular culture.