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xiii Acknowledgments As with any book project, my study owes a thankful debt to many people who encouraged me, asked difficult questions, read portions , and, in some cases, all of the manuscript, offered commentary and criticism, and in many ways made my work better, I believe, for the challenges they posed. Indeed, as is often the case with a research project, this book started with a set of questions and concerns about a Spanish colonial epic that I thought would provide material sufficient for a lecture, an essay, perhaps an opening chapter, but which eventually developed into a longer conversation with, and about, an epic poem published exactly four hundred years ago: Gáspar Pérez deVillagrá’s Historia de la Nueva Mexico. While he was New Mexico state historian, Estevan Rael-Gálvez first invited me to give lectures on my initial readings of the Historia de la Nueva Mexico in Taos and Albuquerque in the summer of 2007. Dennis Trujillo, assistant state historian, prompted me to post the lecture on the state historian’s website and then edited my first published words on the poem.Manuel M. Martin-Rodríguez,my friend and colleague from University of California, Merced, encouraged my interest in Villagrá over long conversations. It was only after reading his remarkably lucid and rich essays on Villagrá’s poem and archive that I was prompted to write something of my own. I completed my manuscript just as the first volume of Manuel’s monumental study, Villagrá: Soldado, Legista, y Poeta was published in Spain (Universidad de León, 2009); I can’t help but know that my work would have been tremendously enriched had I had his book on my desk as I wrote. Gabriel Meléndez let me test portions of chapters in his graduate seminar at the University of New Mexico and offered methodological suggestions for strengthening my reading. I am grateful for his long intellectual and personal friendship. Professor Anne Goldman offered xiv acknowledgments sustained editorial commentary and a critical intelligence that enriched my thinking about epic as a genre of competing rhetorical and ideological forces, all of which eased my trepidation about writing on a colonial text. María Herrera-Sobek and Francisco Lomelí, longtime friends and colleagues,have always encouraged my work,and,indeed,María has written onVillagrá in ways that wonderfully illuminated and further provoked my thinking about the poem. My Berkeley pal Mitchell Breitweiser read drafts of every chapter and offered suggestions, and a cold beer whenever necessary. Professors Jose Davíd Saldívar, Michael Trujillo, Phillip “Felipe” Gonzales, Enrique Lamadrid, great colleagues all, I thank you. Rosa Martinez, my graduate student and research assistant, not only found elusive material, but more importantly enriched my thinking through her own daringly insightful writing on the poem. Professor Luis Leal is remembered here for his kindness and in no small part for his scholarly trailblazing, which opened space for so many of us to study our long literary heritage—after he had set foot in nearly every direction of that heritage and then beckoned us graciously forward. The Bancroft Library staff graciously allowed me to study the 1610 edition in the reading room, and then prepared digital images for use in my book. Clark Whitehorn, editor-in-chief at the University of New Mexico Press, has been a friend to this project from its inception, and Meredith Dodge, my copyeditor, helped make every sentence and every paragraph clear and comprehensible. Finally, my family has always provided the affection and space I need for writing.My wife,María,as usual,let me fill a corner table with books, papers,and various gadgets in order to get this book done;my kids,Andre, Genaro, Jessica, Xochi, and Camila have seen how happy I am to be writing again after“doing administration”and I love them for all for the spirit they bring into my life. My mother, Esperanza “Hope” Padilla, who you will meet in this book,has inspired my research on our culture and literature since I was a child.And then, my bros Alonzo, Lefty, and Eddie listened with “oh yeah?” smiles during our many fishing expeditions along the same rivers where much of the story of Villagrá’s Historia de la Nueva Mexico took place more than four hundred years ago. ...

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