After Santa Fe was founded in 1610, the Hispano people were restless to expand their colony. They slowly pushed their borders to the north, establishing little villages along the Rio Grande and dozens of its tributaries. Their progress was often interrupted, first by the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and later by fierce resistance from the native people whose territory they were invading. Nonetheless, over the centuries of Spanish and Mexican rule, their frontier plaza villages survived. During their long journey, these unique people retained a strong sense of their Spanish identity and tradition. Most remarkably, they also continued to speak a version of castellano, the sixteenth century language of Cervantes. Historians usually say that the outer boundary of the Hispano homeland was defined by the 1860s or 1870s. But the last of the Hispano homesteaders were not finished and continued to create new settlements in the final decades of the nineteenth century and even the early years of twentieth century. This is the never before told story of a few of these New Mexico Hispanos, among the last pioneers, who made their home along a little known river in the high mountain wilderness at the northern edge of New Mexico. And it was happening at just about the time that New Mexico became a state.

This book tells the story of one of the women photographed by Russell Lee in Pie Town, New Mexico in 1940.

This tale is the author’s life ramble that led to the adventure of building a cabin in the northern New Mexico wilderness. The place, called Santa Rita by its founders, was the site of a tiny settlement built by Hispano homesteaders a century earlier. One of Flint’s new neighbors was Baudelio Garcia, a descendant of original pioneers. Garcia partnered with the author to take on the unfamiliar task of building a straw bale house, beginning when the winter snows were still on the surrounding mountains and having the house under roof when the fall snows arrived. Garcia helped navigate the largely Hispano neighborhood to make the project succeed. The collaboration revealed the strong attachment of the local people for their home place, their patria chica, and the persistence of their ancient language and culture.

In this thoughtful social history of New Mexico’s nuclear industry, Lucie Genay traces the scientific colonization of the state in the twentieth century from the points of view of the local people. Genay focuses on personal experiences in order to give a sense of the upheaval that accompanied the rise of the nuclear era. She gives voice to the Hispanics and Native Americans of the Jémez Plateau, the blue-collar workers of Los Alamos, the miners and residents of the Grants Uranium Belt, and the ranchers and farmers who were affected by the federal appropriation of land in White Sands Missile Range and whose lives were upended by the Trinity test and the US government’s reluctance to address the “collateral damage” of the work at the Range. Genay reveals the far-reaching implications for the residents as New Mexico acquired a new identity from its embrace of nuclear science.

New Mexico’s Pajarito Plateau encompasses the Bandelier National Monument and the atomic city of Los Alamos. On Rims and Ridges throws into stark relief what happens when native cultures and Euro-American commercial interests interact in such a remote area with limited resources. The demands of citizens and institutions have created a form of environmental gridlock more often associated with Manhattan Island than with the semiurban West, writes Hal K. Rothman.

"Wishart and the staff of the Center for Great Plains Studies have compiled a wide-ranging (pun intended) encyclopedia of this important region. Their objective was to 'give definition to a region that has traditionally been poorly defined,' and they have

Beginning as a grassroots organizer in the 1950s, Vicente Ximenes was at the forefront of the movement for Mexican American civil rights through three presidential administrations, joining Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society and later emerging as one of the highest-ranking appointees in Johnson's administration. One of the most influential government representatives of Mexican American issues in recent history, Ximenes succeeded largely because he could adapt his rhetoric for different audiences in his speeches and writings. In Vicente Ximenes, LBJ's Great Society, and Mexican American Civil Rights Rhetoric, Michelle Hall Kells elucidates Ximenes's achievement through a rhetorical history of his career as an activist. Kells draws on Ximenes's extensive archive of speeches, reports, articles, and oral interviews to present the activist's rhetorical history and begins each chapter with an excerpt from the collection that showcases Ximenes's ability to negotiate multiple public spheres. Exploring Ximenes's legacy against the backdrop of the Cold War era, Kells's analyses illustrate how Ximenes effectively agitated for open, inclusive, and pluralist democracy at regional and national levels. After a discussion of Ximenes's early life, the author focuses on his career as an activist, examining Ximenes's leadership in several key civil rights events, including the historic 1967 White House cabinet committee hearings on Mexican American Affairs, and highlighting his role in advancing Mexican Americans and Latinos from social marginalization to greater representation in national politics. Kells concludes by reflecting on the later years of Ximenes's life and his contributions to the post-World War II civil rights movement. Vicente Ximenes, LBJ's Great Society, and Mexican American Civil Rights Rhetoric shows us a remarkable man who dedicated the majority of his life to public service, using rhetoric to mobilize activists for change at the grassroots level as well as at the highest levels of government to secure civil rights advances for his fellow Mexican Americans.