Relata en forma ágil los pormenores de una su suigéneris investigación para tratar de dejar en claro de una vez por todas la imposibilidad de la supuesta paternidad del rey español Felipe V sobre uno de los antepasados del Autor, el capitán Juan Diego Longoria, uno de los fundadores en 1749, junto a otras 40 familias, de Santa Ana de Camargo en el antiguo Nuevo Santander. A algunos de los descendientes del capitán Longoria les fueron mercedades por la Corona Española, en 1767, tierras de extensas dimensiones al Norte del Río Bravo, mismas que a raíz del Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo quedaron del lado de territorio norteamericano. El rumor -llegado a oídos del Autor en 1986- de una supuesta herencia derivada de la extracción de petróleo en dichas tierras y que estaría a disposición de sus descendientes hasta la octava generación, amén de un viaje realizado por el Autor a España, Francia y Portugal en 1989, fueron motivo de su primer libro que no rebasó el ámbito familiar. En este su segundo corrige los errores y omisiones en que incurrió en el primero y de paso descubre cómo algunos de los apellidos más conocidos de la región forman parte de su árbol genealógico.

Around 1930, a highly popular and distinctive type of accordion music, commonly known as conjunto, emerged among Texas-Mexicans. Manuel Peña's The Texas-Mexican Con;unto is the first comprehensive study of this unique folk style. The author's exhaustive fieldwork and personal interviews with performers, disc jockeys, dance promoters, recording company owners, and conjunto music lovers provide the crucial connection between an analysis of the music itself and the richness of the culture from which it sprang. Using an approach that integrates musicological, historical, and sociological methods of analysis, Peña traces the development of the conjunto from its tentative beginnings to its preeminence as a full-blown style by the early 1960s. Biographical sketches of such major early performers as Narciso Martínez (El Huracán del Valle), Santiago Jiménez (El Flaco), Pedro Ayala, Valerio Longoria, Tony de la Rosa, and Paulino Bernal, along with detailed transcriptions of representative compositions, illustrate the various phases of conjunto evolution. Peña also probes the vital connection between conjunto's emergence as a powerful symbolic expression and the transformation of Texas-Mexican society from a pre-industrial folk group to a community with increasingly divergent socioeconomic classes and ideologies. Of concern throughout the study is the interplay between ethnicity, class, and culture, and Peña's use of methods and theories from a variety of scholarly disciplines enables him to tell the story of conjunto in a manner both engaging and enlightening. This important study will be of interest to all students of Mexican American culture, ethnomusicology, and folklore.

The areas of race, class, and gender have generated increasing attention within the academy, providing a strong critique of the supposed neutrality of the research process. Interrogating Racism in Qualitative Research Methodology presents qualitative studies and essay reviews that connect these emerging theories to research and practice in the public schools as well as in institutions of higher education. Each chapter explores an emerging area of legal scholarship known as critical race theory and adopts a penetrating perspective that recognizes the normality and invisibility of racism in all aspects of society. This book explores the links between critical race theory and qualitative research methodology, and it interrogates how race connects and conflicts with other areas of difference and is never entirely absent from the research process.