Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas-Mexican Literature ed. by Dagoberto Gilb (review)

b o o k R e v ie w s 4 4 3 Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas'M exican Literature. Edited by Dagoberto Gilb. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. 522 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Bernard Quetchenbach Montana State University, Billings In Hecho en Tejas, editor Dagoberto Gilb gathers poems, songs, stories, essays, and drama by Texan writers of Mexican descent. Gilb adopts the designation “Mexican” as the “internal vernacular” and characterizes the Texas Mexican heritage as the “ghost” that haunts the Lone Star State’s history and culture (xiii, xiv). According to Gilb, the anthology is designed “to be comprehensive about our literary history” (xx). Fittingly, the selections crisscross the state from El Paso to San Antonio to Brownsville, with settings ranging from city neighbor­ hoods to outlying ranchos and brushy forests that Arturo Longoria describes as “untamed woods of twisted trees and briary shrubs” (389-90). The volume begins with Cabeza de Vaca, introduced by Gilb as “the first to live what would become the first mix of Spanish and indigenous people,” and proceeds through chronological chapters leading to the present (xx). The work of wellknown figures including Sandra Cisneros, Gloria Anzaldua, and Gilb himself is grouped with that of writers little known outside of the communities in which they work. Overtly literary texts are placed alongside traditional corridos and popular music selections from artists such as Freddy Fender, Selena, and rap­ per Chingo Bling. The book is illustrated with a generous selection of 1930s photographs and a sampling of full-color artwork plates. Prose selections and poems composed in English are generally printed in English. Most, but not all, poems written in Spanish are presented along with translations. Glosses are sometimes provided, either as footnotes or, more com­ monly, parenthetical insertions, perhaps reflecting the conventions of the origi­ nal text. Since some selections combine Spanish and English, translation is not always a viable option. While monolingual readers may find the inconsistency a bit baffling, the resulting interplay of words and phrases is in keeping with the blending that characterizes Texas Mexican life and language. The biographical notes introducing each writer are lively but brief, espe­ cially considering that one of Gilb’s stated goals for the anthology is that it serve as a textbook for high school and college classes. More contextualization of individual selections would have been particularly useful. It is occasionally difficult to tell if a work is fiction or nonfiction, and the apparent dates of selec­ tions do not always seem consistent with the chapter titles. Mostly, though, the texts speak for themselves. Hecho en Tejas offers char­ acteristic appearances by the Virgin of Guadalupe, la Llorona, the pachuco, even Pancho Villa, and essential themes such as border crossing, discrimination, and disinheritance are addressed. But Hecho en Tejas also offers insight into the 4 4 4 W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n L it e r a t u r e W i n t e r 2 0 0 8 lives of everyday people— small farmers, minor actors, plumbers, and clerks. A recurrent theme is growing up, especially in a bicultural context. Hecho en Tejas is an ambitious, diverse, and enjoyable anthology that ful­ fills Gilb’s goal of providing a comprehensive “celebration, a literary pachanga” covering some five hundred years of Texas Mexican writing (xix). Brave New West: Morphing M oah at the Speed of Qreed. By Jim Stiles. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007. 260 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by James M. Cahalan Indiana University of Pennsylvania A resident of Moab since 1975, Jim Stiles has been Edward Abbey’s closest suecessor there since Abbey died in 1989— on the same day that Stiles’s remarkable alternative newspaper, The Canyon Country Zephyr, first appeared. His great illustrations have continued ever since, in the Zephyr and on the cover of this book. Among the countless “how I met Ed Abbey” stories, his is the best. After he read The Monkey Wrench Gang ( 1975) hot off the press, he leapt into his VW in Kentucky and headed for Wolf Hole, Arizona. The novel’s jacket assured him that Abbey lived...