Comadres

de Nasario Garcia

Comadres celebrates a way of life, a generation of women, and a regional language whose contribution to New Mexican history and culture has long been overlooked. Twelve women pay tribute to Hispana experiences on the farms and ranches of the Rio Puerco Valley during the first decades of statehood. Branding cows, birthing children, washing sheets, and building walls, the hands of these women shaped the world in which they lived; their stories make an ongoing legacy of culture and lifeways. García transcribes the women's remembrances in a printed regional Spanish remarkable for its faithfulness to the spoken word. This Spanish is richly dialectic and a vital thread in the varied tapestry that is New Mexican language. English translations render the Spanish with detailed, personal nuance, and a glossary encourages readers with linguistic interests to compare regional variations with the standard Spanish of textbooks and dictionaries --Back cover.