New Special Collections Titles for July-September 2022
Dylan McDonald
Special Collections added the following 14 titles to ASC’s holdings during the third quarter of 2022. The list is a sample of purchased and donated publications and while not exhaustive, is meant to highlight recent acquisitions. For a full list of Special Collections titles, please search PRIMO, the library’s catalog.
Birds of the Sun: Macaws and People in the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest by Christopher W. Schwartz (Editor); Stephen Plog (Editor); Patricia A. Gilman (Editor)
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating E98.B54 B57 2022
ISBN: 9780816544745
Publication Date: 2022-03-15
Scarlet macaws are native to tropical forests ranging from the Gulf Coast and southern regions of Mexico to Bolivia, but they are present at numerous archaeological sites in the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest. Although these birds have been noted and marveled at through the decades, new syntheses of early excavations, new analytical methods, and new approaches to understanding the past now allow us to explore the significance and distribution of scarlet macaws to a degree that was previously impossible. Birds of the Sun explores the many aspects of macaws, especially scarlet macaws, that have made them important to Native peoples living in this region for thousands of years. Leading experts discuss the significance of these birds, including perspectives from a Zuni author, a cultural anthropologist specializing in historic Pueblo societies, and archaeologists who have studied pre-Hispanic societies in Mesoamerica and the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest. Chapters examine the highly variable distribution and frequency of macaws in the past, their presence on rock art and kiva murals, the human experience of living with and transporting macaws, macaw biology and life history, and what skeletal remains suggest about the health of macaws in the past. Experts provide an extensive, region-by-region analysis, from early to late periods, of what we know about the presence, health, and depositional contexts of macaws and parrots, with specific case studies from the Hohokam, Chaco, Mimbres, Mogollon Highlands, Northern Sinagua, and Casas Grandes regions, where these birds are most abundant. The expertise offered in this stunning new volume, which includes eight full color pages, will lay the groundwork for future research for years to come. Contributors Katelyn J. Bishop Patricia L. Crown Samantha Fladd Randee Fladeboe Patricia A. Gilman Thomas Kelley Harper Michelle Hegmon Douglas J. Kennett Patrick D. Lyons Charmion R. McKusick Ben A. Nelson Stephen Plog José Luis Punzo Díaz Polly Schaafsma Christopher W. Schwartz Octavius Seowtewa Christine R. Szuter Kelley L. M. Taylor Michael E. Whalen Peter M. Whiteley
The Comic Book Western: New Perspectives on a Global Genre by Christopher Conway (Editor); Antoinette Sol (Editor)
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating PN6714 .C643 2022
ISBN: 9781496231642
Publication Date: 2022-06-01
One of the greatest untold stories about the globalization of the Western is the key role of comics. Few American cultural exports have been as successful globally as the Western, a phenomenon commonly attributed to the widespread circulation of fiction, film, and television. The Comic Book Western centers comics in the Western's international success. Even as readers consumed translations of American comic book Westerns, they fell in love with local ones that became national or international sensations. These essays reveal the unexpected cross-pollinations that allowed the Western to emerge from and speak to a wide range of historical and cultural contexts, including Spanish and Italian fascism, Polish historical memory, the ideology of shōjo manga from Japan, British post-apocalypticism and the gothic, race and identity in Canada, Mexican gender politics, French critiques of manifest destiny, and gaucho nationalism in Argentina. The vibrant themes uncovered in The Comic Book Western teach us that international comic book Westerns are not hollow imitations but complex and aesthetically powerful statements about identity, culture, and politics.
Donaciano Vigil: The Life of a Nuevomexicano Soldier, Statesman, and Territorial Governor by Maurilio E. Vigil; Helene Boudreau
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating F801.V5 V54 2022
ISBN: 9780826363411
Publication Date: 2022-03-30
Born in Santa Fe in 1802, Donaciano Vigil was an active participant in many of the critical events in New Mexico's history in the nineteenth century. Vigil was witness to New Mexico's transition from a Spanish province (1802-1821) to a Mexican department (1821-1846) and eventually to an American territory (1846-1877), and he was a key player in most of the events of that era. As a Hispano soldier and officer in the New Mexico Militia, he was instrumental in the Navajo Wars, the Rio Arriba insurrection of 1837, the Texas invasion of 1841, and the American invasion of 1846. As a Mexican statesman in New Mexico, he was one of the most active assemblymen. Following the American occupation, he joined the civil government, first as secretary, then as governor. It was in these roles that Donaciano left an enduring impact and legacy on the territory.In this gripping biography of a remarkable man, Maurilio E. Vigil and Helene Boudreau fill the gap within the scholarship on Hispanics in nineteenth-century New Mexico.
Explorer's Guide New Mexico by Sharon Niederman
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating F794.3 .N54 2019
ISBN: 9781682681909
Publication Date: 2018-11-27
New Mexico-based author Sharon Niederman has been traveling, writing about, and photographing her home state for over two decades. In this third revised and updated edition of Explorer's Guide New Mexico, she brings readers the very best of New Mexico's cuisine, lodging, and natural environment. With this comprehensive guide, you can explore spectacularly breathtaking hikes and drives, discover treasures created by local artists, find festivals that celebrate native traditions, get indispensable advice on local attractions, and meet the people who will make your visit to the Land of Enchantment the experience of a lifetime. Sites include: * Manhattan Project National Historic Park * Taos and the Enchanted Circle * Santa Fe Trail Region * Route 66 Country.
A History of Navajo Nation Education: Disentangling Our Sovereign Body by Wendy Shelly Greyeyes; Kevin K. Washburn (Foreword by)
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating E99.N3 G865 2022
ISBN: 9780816544875
Publication Date: 2022-03-01
A History of Navajo Nation Education: Disentangling Our Sovereign Body unravels the tangle of federal and state education programs that have been imposed on Navajo people and illuminates the ongoing efforts by tribal communities to transfer state authority over Diné education to the Navajo Nation. On the heels of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Department of Diné Education, this important education history explains how the current Navajo educational system is a complex terrain of power relationships, competing agendas, and jurisdictional battles influenced by colonial pressures and tribal resistance. An iron grip of colonial domination over Navajo education remains, thus inhibiting a unified path toward educational sovereignty. In providing the historical roots to today's challenges, Wendy Shelly Greyeyes clears the path and provides a go-to reference to move discussions forward.
Land Uprising: Native Story Power and the Insurgent Horizons of Latinx Indigeneity by Simón Ventura Trujillo
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating F801.2 .T78 2022
ISBN: 9780816546947
Publication Date: 2022-01-04
Land Uprising reframes Indigenous land reclamation as a horizon to decolonize the settler colonial conditions of literary, intellectual, and activist labor. Simón Ventura Trujillo argues that land provides grounding for rethinking the connection between Native storytelling practices and Latinx racialization across overlapping colonial and nation-state forms. Trujillo situates his inquiry in the cultural production of La Alianza Federal de Mercedes, a formative yet understudied organization of the Chicanx movement of the 1960s and 1970s. La Alianza sought to recover Mexican and Spanish land grants in New Mexico that had been dispossessed after the Mexican-American War. During graduate school, Trujillo realized that his grandparents were activists in La Alianza. Written in response to this discovery, Land Uprising bridges La Alianza's insurgency and New Mexican land grant struggles to the writings of Leslie Marmon Silko, Ana Castillo, Simon Ortiz, and the Zapatista Uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. In doing so, the book reveals uncanny connections between Chicanx, Latinx, Latin American, and Native American and Indigenous studies to grapple with Native land reclamation as the future horizon for Chicanx and Latinx indigeneities.
Making a Modern U.S. West: The Contested Terrain of a Region and its Borders, 1898-1940 by Sarah Deutsch; Richard W. Etulain (Preface by)
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating F595 .D48 2022
ISBN: 9781496228611
Publication Date: 2022-01-01
To many Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the West was simultaneously the greatest symbol of American opportunity, the greatest story of its history, and the imagined blank slate on which the country's future would be written. From the Spanish-American War in 1898 to the Great Depression's end, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, policymakers at various levels and large-scale corporate investors, along with those living in the West and its borderlands, struggled over who would define modernity, who would participate in the modern American West, and who would be excluded. In Making a Modern U.S. West Sarah Deutsch surveys the history of the U.S. West from 1898 to 1940. Centering what is often relegated to the margins in histories of the region--the flows of people, capital, and ideas across borders--Deutsch attends to the region's role in constructing U.S. racial formations and argues that the West as a region was as important as the South in constructing the United States as a "white man's country." While this racial formation was linked to claims of modernity and progress by powerful players, Deutsch shows that visions of what constituted modernity were deeply contested by others. This expansive volume presents the most thorough examination to date of the American West from the late 1890s to the eve of World War II.
A New Deal for Navajo Weaving: Reform and Revival of Diné Textiles by Jennifer McLerran
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating E99.N3 M314 2022
ISBN: 9780816543243
Publication Date: 2022-05-10
A New Deal for Navajo Weaving provides a detailed history of early to mid-twentieth-century Diné weaving projects by non-Natives who sought to improve the quality and marketability of Navajo weaving but in so doing failed to understand the cultural significance of weaving and its role in the lives of Diné women. By the 1920s the durability and market value of Diné weavings had declined dramatically. Indian welfare advocates established projects aimed at improving the materials and techniques. Private efforts served as models for federal programs instituted by New Deal administrators. Historian Jennifer McLerran details how federal officials developed programs such as the Southwest Range and Sheep Breeding Laboratory at Fort Wingate in New Mexico and the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild. Other federal efforts included the publication of Native natural dye recipes; the publication of portfolios of weaving designs to guide artisans; and the education of consumers through the exhibition of weavings, aiding them in their purchases and cultivating an upscale market. McLerran details how government officials sought to use these programs to bring the Diné into the national economy; instead, these federal tactics were ineffective because they marginalized Navajo women and ignored the important role weaving plays in the resilience and endurance of wider Diné culture.
New Mexico's Moses: Reies López Tijerina and the Religious Origins of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement by Ramón A. Gutiérrez
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating F805.M5 G88 2022
ISBN: 9780826363756
Publication Date: 2022-06-30
In New Mexico's Moses, Ramón A. Gutiérrez dives deeply into Reies López Tijerina's religious formation during the 1940s and 1950s, illustrating how his Pentecostal foundation remained an integral part of his psyche even as he migrated toward social-movement politics. An Assemblies of God evangelist turned Pentecostal itinerant preacher, Tijerina used his secularized apocalyptic theology to inspire the dispossessed heirs of Spanish and Mexican land grants fighting to recuperate ancestral lands throughout northern New Mexico and the Southwest. Using Tijerina's collected sermons, Gutiérrez demonstrates the ways in which biblical prophecy influenced Tijerina throughout his life from his early days as a preacher to his leadership of the Alianza Federal de Mercedes. Tijerina sought justice for those who had lost their lands and was determined to eradicate the most egregious forms of racism and to valorize the language and culture of mexicanos. Translated into English for the first time here, Tijerina's sermons serve as a blueprint for the religious origins of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement.
Nobody's Pilgrims by Sergio Troncoso
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating PS3570.R5876 N63 2022
ISBN: 9781947627413
Publication Date: 2022-05-10
Gold Medal for Best Novel - Adventure or Drama in English, International Latino Book Awards No Country for Old Men meets Contagion in this story of three teenagers on the run, carrying a great menace, and chased by a greater evil. Three teenagers are traveling northeast in a navy blue Ford pickup. Turi has fled his abusive family to see the beautiful New England landscape he's always dreamed about. Arnulfo is undocumented and wants only to find someplace to work and live. Molly seeks a new life far away from her nowhere Missouri town. Turi and Arnulfo are best friends. Molly and Turi are falling in love. But for all their innocence, violence follows the trio at every turn. The mean viejito who owns the truck wants it back. The narco who hid a deadly shipment in the truck really, really wants it back. And the imperturbable hitman the narco sends after the trio will kill anyone who stands in his way. Turi, Arnulfo, and Molly might outrun the carnage that's stalking them ... but they can't elude the chaos they're carrying, no matter how far they go. A literary novel with the propulsion of a thriller, a genre joyride written in the prose of a master, Nobody's Pilgrims both offers and questions the possibility of escape in America -- like Huckleberry Finn with a gritty frontera twist.
Our Fight Has Just Begun: Hate Crimes and Justice in Native America by Cheryl Redhorse Bennett
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating E99.N3 B46 2022
ISBN: 9780816541683
Publication Date: 2022-03-01
Our Fight Has Just Begun is a timely and urgent work. The result of more than a decade of research, it revises history, documents anti-Indianism, and gives voice to victims of racial violence. Navajo scholar Cheryl Redhorse Bennett reveals a lesser-known story of Navajo activism and the courageous organizers that confronted racial injustice and inspired generations. Illuminating largely untold stories of hate crimes committed against Native Americans in the Four Corners region of the United States, this work places these stories within a larger history, connecting historical violence in the United States to present-day hate crimes. Bennett contends that hate crimes committed against Native Americans have persisted as an extension of an "Indian hating" ideology that has existed since colonization, exposing how the justice system has failed Native American victims and families. While this book looks deeply at multiple generations of unnecessary and ongoing pain and violence, it also recognizes that this is a time of uncertainty and hope. The movement to abolish racial injustice and racially motivated violence has gained fierce momentum. Our Fight Has Just Begun shows that racism, hate speech, and hate crimes are ever present and offers recommendations for racial justice.
Patriots from the Barrio: the Story of Company E, 141st Infantry: the Only All Mexican American Army Unit in World War II by Dave Gutierrez
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating D769.31 141st .G885 2018
ISBN: 9781594162992
Publication Date: 2018-05-25
The Inspiring True Story of a Segregated Unit Whose Exploits Underscore the Forgotten Latino Contribution to the Allied Victory in World War II As a child, Dave Gutierrez hung on every word his father recalled about his cousin Ramon, "El Sancudo" (the mosquito), and his service in World War II, where he earned a Silver Star, three Purple Hearts, and escaped from the Germans twice. Later, Dave decided to find out more about his father's cousin, and in the course of his research he discovered that Ramon Gutierrez was a member of Company E, 141st Infantry, a part of the 36th "Texas" Division that was comprised entirely of Mexican Americans--the only such unit in the entire U.S. Army. The division landed at Salerno, Italy, in 1943, among first American soldiers to set foot in Europe. In the ensuing months, Company E and the rest of the 36th would battle their way up the mountainous Italian peninsula against some of Nazi Germany's best troops. In addition to the merciless rain, mud, and jagged peaks, swift cold rivers crisscrossed the region, including the Rapido, where Company E would face its greatest challenge. In an infamous episode, the 36th Division was ordered to cross the Rapido despite reports that the opposite bank was heavily defended. In the ensuing debacle, the division was ripped apart, and Company E sustained appalling casualties. The company rebounded and made the storied landings at Anzio and ultimately invaded southern France for a final push into Germany. The men of Company E distinguished themselves as rugged fighters capable of warring amid the rubble of destroyed villages and in the devastated countryside. Based on extensive archival research and veteran and family accounts, Patriots from the Barrio: The Story of Company E, 141st Infantry: The Only All Mexican American Army Unit in World War II brings to life the soldiers whose service should never have gone unrecognized for so long. With its memorable personalities, stories of hope and immigration, and riveting battle scenes, this beautifully written book is a testament to the shared beliefs of all who have fought for the ideals of the American flag.
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating PZ7.1.V4 Si 2020
ISBN: 9781534448636
Publication Date: 2020-08-11
"In a world where we are so often dividing ourselves into us and them, this book feels like a kind of magic, celebrating all beliefs, ethnicities, and unknowns." --The New York Times Book Review Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe meets Roswell by way of Laurie Halse Anderson in this astonishing, genre-bending novel about a Mexican American teen who discovers profound connections between immigration, folklore, and alien life. It's been three years since ICE raids and phone calls from Mexico and an ill-fated walk across the Sonoran. Three years since Sia Martinez's mom disappeared. Sia wants to move on, but it's hard in her tiny Arizona town where people refer to her mom's deportation as "an unfortunate incident." Sia knows that her mom must be dead, but every new moon Sia drives into the desert and lights San Anthony and la Guadalupe candles to guide her mom home. Then one night, under a million stars, Sia's life and the world as we know it cracks wide open. Because a blue-lit spacecraft crashes in front of Sia's car...and it's carrying her mom, who's very much alive. As Sia races to save her mom from armed-quite-possibly-alien soldiers, she uncovers secrets as profound as they are dangerous in this stunning and inventive exploration of first love, family, immigration, and our vast, limitless universe.
World War II and the West It Wrought by Mark Brilliant (Editor); David M. Kennedy (Editor)
Call Number: Branson Library, Special Collections - Non-circulating HN79.A17 W67 2020
ISBN: 9781503611573
Publication Date: 2020-04-28
Few episodes in American history were more transformative than World War II, and in no region did it bring greater change than in the West. Having lifted the United States out of the Great Depression, World War II set in motion a massive westward population movement, ignited a quarter-century boom that redefined the West as the nation's most economically dynamic region, and triggered unprecedented public investment in manufacturing, education, scientific research, and infrastructure--an economic revolution that would lay the groundwork for prodigiously innovative high-tech centers in Silicon Valley, the Puget Sound area, and elsewhere. Amidst robust economic growth and widely shared prosperity in the post-war decades, Westerners made significant strides toward greater racial and gender equality, even as they struggled to manage the environmental consequences of their region's surging vitality. At the same time, wartime policies that facilitated the federal withdrawal of Western public lands and the occupation of Pacific islands for military use continued an ongoing project of U.S. expansionism at home and abroad. This volume explores the lasting consequences of a pivotal chapter in U.S. history, and offers new categories for understanding the post-war West. Contributors to this volume include Mark Brilliant, Geraldo L. Cadava, Matthew Dallek, Mary L. Dudziak, Jared Farmer, David M. Kennedy, Daniel J. Kevles, Rebecca Jo Plant, Gavin Wright, and Richard White.