In this third and concluding installment to the Salinas trilogy, we follow the cancer diagnosis, treatment, and death of Nina's mother Linda-the effect of which jolts the fate and fortitude of her entire family, testing their very will go on. It is, however, Linda's legacy of her fascination with, and love for birds, most notably one special red-tailed hawk she calls Guerrero Místico, that points the way to collective strength, resiliency, and hope. Such hope is not just for the L...

In this first in The Salinas Trilogy, Nina Lucero discovers that blood guilt has its consequences as she fights her way to self reliance, escaping from the multicultural, Pentecostal confines of a rural upbringing in southern New Mexico. Whether in butchering prize farm animals for food, hunting deer in the nearby Manzano Mountains with her war-vet uncle, warding off the lecherous attacks of neighboring twin brothers, or protecting herself from combative school-girl rivals, violence and bl...

Growing up in a Spanish American culture in the American West at the turn of the twentieth century invites assimilation, a process made all the more conflicted through the evolving stages of individuation and the tensions of political correctness and hyphenated identities: Anglo-American, Spanish-American, Mexican-American, Native American, and the subcultures of Stompers, Pachucos, Chicanos, Cholos, Indios, and Squares. This book contains a dozen interconnected stories set against these l...