With texts in both Spanish and English, Fiesta, Fe, y Cultura gives a brief history of the Detroit colonia Mexicana and the first comprehensive study of three Mexican-American religious fiestas in the Midwest: the Day of the Dead, the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Los Posadas. The author draws on archival sources, field research, and oral interviews with Detroit's pioneering Mexican immigrants and their children.

Arts as intimate as a piece of needlework or a home altar. Arts as visible as decorative iron, murals, and low riders. Through such arts, members of Tucson's Mexican American community contribute much of the cultural flavor that defines the city to its residents and to the outside world. Now Tucson folklorist Jim Griffith celebrates these public and private artistic expressions and invites us to meet the people who create them. - Josefina Liz‡rraga learned to make paper flowers as a girl in her native state of Nayarit, Mexico, and ensures that this delicate art is not lost. - Ornamental blacksmith William Flores runs the oldest blacksmithing business in town, a living link with an earlier Tucson. - Ramona Franco's family has maintained an elaborate altar to Our Lady of Guadalupe for three generations. - Signmaker Paul Lira, responsible for many of Tucson's most interesting signs, brings to his work a thoroughly mexicano sense of aesthetics and humor. - Muralists David Tineo and Luis Mena proclaim Mexican cultural identity in their work and carry on a tradition that has blossomed in the last twenty years. Featuring a foreword by Tucson author Patricia Preciado Martin and a spectacular gallery of photographs, many by Pulitzer prize-winning photographer JosŽ Galvez, this remarkable book offers a close-up view of a community rich with tradition and diverse artistic expression. Hecho a Mano is a pi–ata bursting with unexpected treasures that will inspire and inform anyone with an interest in folk art or Mexican American culture.

"Beaches, architecture, Carnival, nightlife, scuba diving, music, nature preserves, museums, restaurants, hotels, rum"--Cover.

How have Mexican immigrants reshaped the US? What is their history and culture? Why did they leave their homeland? Focusing on the human side of the story, this work probes these questions by tracing the lives of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people. Featuring photographs, it points the way to a journey into the Mexican-American experience.

Honoring relatives by tending graves, building altars, and cooking festive meals has been an honored tradition among Latin Americans for centuries. The tribute, "el Dia de los Muertos," has enjoyed renewed popularity since the 1970s when Latino activists and artists in the United States began expanding "Day of the Dead" north of the border with celebrations of performance art, Aztec danza, art exhibits, and other public expressions. Focusing on the power of ritual to serve as a communication medium, Regina M. Marchi combines a mix of ethnography, historical research, oral history, and critical cultural analysis to explore the manifold and unexpected transformations that occur when the tradition is embraced by the mainstream. A testament to the complex nature of ethnic identity, Day of the Dead in the USA provides insight into the power of ritual to create community, transmit oppositional messages, and advance educational, political, and economic goals.