In Dolor y Alegría (Sorrow and Joy), fifteen mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca speak about the dramatic effects that urbanization and rapid social change have had on their lives. Sarah LeVine deftly combines these autobiographical vignettes with ethnographic material, survey findings, and her own observations. The result is a vivid picture of contrast and continuity. While many earlier publications have focused on the poor of Latin America who live at the margins of urban life, Dolor y Alegría explores the experiences of ordinary working and lower-middle class women, most of them transplants from villages and small towns to a densely populated city neighborhood. In their early years, many experienced family disruption, emotional deprivation, and economic hardship; but steadily increasing educational opportunities, improved health care, and easily available contraception have significantly altered how the younger women relate to their families and the larger society. Today's Mexican schoolgirl, LeVine shows, is encouraged to apply herself to her studies for her own benefit, and the longer she remains in school, the greater the self-confidence she will carry with her into the world of work and later into marriage and motherhood. Hard economic times have forced many married women into the workplace where their sense of personal efficacy is enhanced; at the same time, in the domestic sphere, their earnings allow them greater negotiating power with husbands and male relatives. Changes are not confined to the younger generation. Older women are enjoying better health and living longer; but with adult children either less able or willing to accept responsibility for aged parents than they were in the past, anxiety runs high and family relations are often strained. Dolor y Alegría takes a close look at the efforts of three generations of Mexican women to redefine themselves in both family and workplace; it shows that today's young woman has very different expectations of herself and others from those that her grandmother or even her mother had.

Finding My Alegria is a beautiful coming-of-age poetic memoir where the author shares her journey, with raw honesty, about becoming a creative entrepreneur and a woman with all its twists and turns. This book will benefit several nonprofit organizations focused on educating young people about mental health and addiction healing through the arts.

"Each of these works is meticulously structured around a two-poem section that gives each its unique configuration and character. Yet, at the same time, each poem maintains its individual independence and singular integrity."--BOOK JACKET. "In Breaking New Ground, W. Michael Mudrovic presents a comprehensive reading and detailed analysis of Rodriguez's work to date, including Casi una leyenda."--BOOK JACKET.

In the fast-growing fields of happiness studies and pain research, which have attracted scholars from diverse disciplines including psychology, philosophy, medicine, and economics, this volume provides a much-needed cross-linguistic perspective. It centres on the question of how much ways of talking and thinking about happiness and pain vary across cultures, and seeks to answer this question by empirically examining the core vocabulary pertaining to “happiness” and “pain” in many languages and in different religious and cultural traditions. The authors not only probe the precise meanings of the expressions in question, but also provide extensive cultural contextualization, showing how these meanings are truly cultural. Methodologically, while in full agreement with the view of many social scientists and economists that self-reports are the bedrock of happiness research, the volume presents a body of evidence highlighting the problem of translation and showing how local concepts of “happiness” and “pain” can be understood without an Anglo bias. The languages examined include (Mandarin) Chinese, Danish, English, French, German, Japanese, Koromu (a Papua New Guinean language), and Latin American Spanish. Originally published in International Journal of Language and Culture Vol. 1:2 (2014).

Spanish Each Day a New Beginning

EL LIBRO---------- ES SOBRE LAS OSCURAS EMOCIONES, DIFICULTADES, Y LUCHAS,QUE CASI ME LLEVARON AL PUNTO DEL SUICIDIO,SOBRE LO QUE MI OJOS VIERON, MI CORAZON, MI CUERPO, MI MENTE EN UN TORBELLINO SENTIAN,TODAS ESCRITAS EN POEMAS.PERO TAMBIEN COMO DE TODAS ESAS TERRIBLES EMOCIONES, TENIA A ANGELES QUE ME VELABAN Y A UN DIOS TODOPODEROSO QUE ME AMABA.