Acknowledgements

Without the invaluable assistance of numerous people, we could not have assembled this issue of Callaloo. We must first thank Mitchell Rice, Dora Careaga Coleman, and Richard Fantina, each of whom directed us in their specific ways to helpful and supportive individuals in the State of Veracruz—to individuals who generously gave us their time and support as soon as we explained our project. We are thinking of such people as Octavio Lopéz Zaragoza, Miguel Fematt, and Pepe Ochoa, all of whom continue to give us their selfless assistance and encouragement. And through our contact with these Veracruzanos, we met other Mexicans who are interested in Afromestizo history, life and culture. These helpful people include Alfredo Martínez Maranto, Ignacio Lopéz Lopéz, Sr., and his family, Pablo García Alfonseca, Manuel González, Milena Milosevec, Uros Uscebrka, Marilu Marin Marin (a Jalapeña who teaches at one of the schools in Coyolillo) Benita Lopéz Lopéz (a nurse who provides health care for the people of Coyolillo and surrounding villages and towns). We are grateful to all of the people, some of whom have become our very good friends and colleagues.

We are also grateful to the contributors of this issue of Callaloo, especially to those inhabitants of Coyolillo, whose full names we decided not to represent in these pages. Instead we used only their first names, and yet we realize that our readers will discern that Benita and Marilu refer, respectively, to Benita López López and Marilu Marin Marin. Without a desire or promise of fame or fortune, the twenty-three Coyoleños, whose voices are represented here, gave freely and sincerely of their time and their visions of themselves and their community. In fact, their voices and the faces of those presented in some of the photographs made this number of Callaloo possible, for they are our central focus.

Our translators also made this issue of the journal possible. In unrecorded ways, my colleague and friend Marco Portales—not only as a translator—continues to show his commitment to Callaloo and its various projects in capacities far beyond working as a translator. Without his continuing assistance, support, and encouragement, along with his eloquent translations, I would not have a written (and, sometimes, spoken) voice among Spanish-language readers/speakers. On a moment's notice, he always answers our frequent and desperate calls for translations—in spite of the fact that he too has a heavy academic schedule. And at the end of the academic term, with all the demands that accompany it, the other translators for this special issue made great sacrifices for us to ready this project for our publisher. Sheila Jordan, Yvi Lopez, Edna Madera, Ana Martinez, Eréndira Melgoza, Robin Padilla, Jr., Beatriz Rivera, Mar Traello, Ben Van Wyke, Pablo J. Davis (Program Director, South Atlantic Humanities Center, Charlottsville, Virginia), José Luis Montiel (Lecturer, University of Texas at Austin), José M. Pereiro Otero (Lecturer, University of Texas at Austin), and Antonio Tillis (Assistant Professor of Spanish, Purdue University at West Lafayette)—each of these friends of Callaloo translated a number of texts, while some of them also transcribed interviews and proofread the Spanish-language section of this issue. We will always be grateful to them for their contributions to the journal.

We would be remiss if we did not express our appreciation for the extensive work Marcus D. Jones did—and continues to do—not only for this issue but also for the rest of our Mexico project, an international cultural exchange that we describe in the Editor's Notes. To help assemble this issue, Marcus Jones, who is a practicing attorney and a professor at Northwestern State University in Louisiana, did work whose description ranges from yeoman to editorial and artistic: for example, he drove us more than five times to and from Mexico; he took numerous photographs of the people and the setting of Coyolillo itself; he edited some of the manuscripts for this issue; he interviewed some of the inhabitants...