Comadres: Hispanic Women of the Rio Puerco Valley

Comadres celebrates a way of life, a generation of women, and a regional language whose contribution to New Mexican history and culture has long been overlooked. Twelve women pay tribute to Hispana experiences on the farms and ranches of the Ro Puerco Valley during the first decades of statehood. Branding cows, birthing children, washing sheets, and building walls, the hands of these women shaped the world in which they lived; their stories make an ongoing legacy of culture and lifeways.

Garca transcribes the women's remembrances in a regional Spanish remarkable for its faithfulness to the spoken word. This Spanish is richly dialectic and a vital thread in the varied tapestry that is New Mexican language. English translations and a glossary encourage readers with linguistic interests to compare regional variations with standard Spanish.

Nasario Garcia is professor of languages at New Mexico Highlands University. He is the author of Recuerdos de los Viejitos: Tales of the Rio Puerco, and Tata: A Voice from the Ro Puerco, also available from UNM Press.