Nasario Garcia

Nasario Garcia's poignant memoir revisits the 1940s Albuquerque neighborhood of his youth to capture the struggles and joys of growing up in Albuquerque's oldest barrio. In the summer of 1945, nine-year-old Junie is transplanted from the idyllic setting of his family ranch in the R o Puerco valley to Albuquerque's oldest barrio, Mart neztown, home and refuge for Nuevomexicanos seeking better opportunities in the wake of World War II. Young Junie finds comfort in some of the community's familiar Hispanic traditions as he struggles to learn a new language and navigate this often confusing and challenging new environment. Through the boy's eyes we meet an extraordinary cast of characters and urban survivors on an intercultural journey into modern New Mexico. To read this remarkable collection is to enter a time machine and travel into a world where neighbors help neighbors as they celebrate life and confront life's tragedies and heartaches side by side. These connected stories serve as an elegy for an era too important to relegate to the forgotten past. Mart neztown, 1945 transcends its specific time, place, and culture to become a universal testament to our shared humanity with all of its confounding imperfections and sporadic splendor.

Seven-year old Junie L pez accompanies his grandma Lucinda on an adventurous trip walking from Bernalillo to the Pueblo of Sand a three miles away to visit her best friend Clarita and to participate in the yearly celebration of the San Antonio fiestas. Besides eating an assortment of foods at Clarita's home, including pinto beans cooked in her unique way using a clay pot, along with observing dancers dressed in bright Native American costumes and other local traditions, Junie learns of the long-standing bond between Clarita and his grandma. Clarita's Clay Pot: A Story of Friendship is emblematic of a genuine cross-cultural relationship. The story, inspired by an eighty-year-old clay pot that Clarita molded with her own hands, is tender and humorous.

Nasario Garcia has spent a lifetime dedicated to educating others in a variety of settings, including universities and prisons. A native of rural New Mexico and a beloved writer and folklorist, in Beyond My Adobe Schoolhouse Garcia reflects on his experiences of being educated and of being an educator. He takes readers from his childhood in a one-room schoolhouse through graduate school and to universities and other settings in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Colorado, and New Mexico, all places in which he spent time teaching in various capacities. Beyond My Adobe Schoolhouse is a love song to education and a reminder to everyone that it is possible to find a life, love, and purpose beyond the circumstances into which they were born.

These stories come from a variety of Southwestern states — as well as Latin America — and demonstrate how the magical world of witchcraft and the supernatural connects Spain to Latin America, and Latin America to North America. This rich tradition of supernatural tales illuminates an unexplored aspect of the American Southwest’s Hispanic heritage. The collection also includes biographical information on the narrators and a glossary highlighting the regional Spanish dialect of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, USA.

It takes all kinds to populate Northern New Mexico, and this book has every one: from gypsies and gamblers to ranchers and criminals. Noted author Nasario García introduces us to some of these people and the challenges they face. The title character, Adelfa, flirts with the glamour of casinos and finds herself addicted to gambling. Sam ""Spam"" Austin, an inmate serving a long sentence for murder, is paroled, attends medical school, and becomes a doctor. The affable grandfather in ""Yo Quiero Hacer un Lie 'Way,"" a hard-working and honorable rancher, stuns the proprietor of a mortuary with his request to put a coffin on layaway.

When Nasario García was a boy in Ojo del Padre, a village in the Rio Puerco Valley northwest of Albuquerque, he grew up the way rural New Mexicans had for generations. His parents built their own adobe house, raised their own food, hauled their water from the river, and brought up their children to respect the old ways. In this account of his boyhood García writes unforgettably about his family’s village life, telling story after story, all of them true, and fascinating everyone interested in New Mexico history and culture.

The popular cuentos that parents and grandparents in rural New Mexico once upon a time told their children are a rich source of the folklore of the region and offer satisfying entertainment. In this collection of bilingual stories about the Río Puerco Valley, where Nasario García grew up, he shares the traditions, myths, and stories of his homeland. He recounts stories of the evil eye and rooster racing, the Wailing Woman and the punishing of the santos. Preceding each tale is García's brief explanation of the history and culture behind the story.

Grandpa Lolo lives on a ranch in northern New Mexico. When he buys a black-and-white horse named Zorrillo (skunk) from Manuelito Yazzie, a Navajo who lives in a hogan in Torreón, Manuelito throws a tilma, a beautiful Navajo saddle blanket, into the deal. And so begins a beautiful friendship. This authentic slice of life in the multicultural West will warm the hearts of readers of all ages.

The author of ""Tiempos Lejanos: Poetic Images from the Past"" returns to his roots in a new and exciting book of poetry about his childhood in Guadalupe, New Mexcio, originally called Ojo del Padre, presumably in honor of a priest who discovered a still-bubbling spring in the area. The village of Guadalupe is no more, but Garcia's vibrant word pictures transport us to a time and place of true community and existence. Written first in Spanish, then translated to English, these poems paint his young life and the lives of his family members and neighbors in west central New Mexico in the mid-twentieth century. Garcia's perceptions of a wider world and all it includes, but still anchored in the routines of home and play and work, were imparted by his mother who never attended a day of school in her life.

Author, poet, linguist, and oral historian Nasario Garcia turns to his childhood home, the Rio Puerco Valley southeast of Chaco Canyon in northern New Mexico, for the setting of this collection of fictional short stories. These tales are based on Garcia's personal experiences or stories he heard about people or events while growing up in his valley. They illustrate the vibrant culture of rural northern New Mexico and its inhabitants with a cast of common characters, above all women, whose compassion, willfulness, humor, observation, and spirit reflect the rich heritage of the environment that inspired their creation. Some of Garcia's characters proclaim their own goodness and live on to enjoy that righteousness; others fall victim to the shortcomings of human nature. Regardless, laughter, empathy, and introspection are the common threads that connect these wonderful stories to one another. Garcia originally wrote these tales in his native tongue, Spanish, and later translated them into English. Both versions appear here with a bilingual glossary that places regional terms and local idioms side-by-side for those unfamiliar with northern New Mexico Spanish.

He got as close as he could to observe the spectacle; his eyes could hardly believe what he saw. Circled around the huge bonfire were many witches dancing and making all kinds of gestures amidst laughs, screams, and bursts of laughter as they sang all together. Recounted in Spanish and in English translation, these tales of sorcerers, fiendish witches, La Llorona, the vanishing hitchhiker, ghostly apparitions, and balls of fire will fascinate and spook readers of all ages and backgrounds. The sixty-four narrators in Brujeras range in age from seventeen to ninety-eight years old. Their stories come from a variety of Southwestern states as well as Latin America and demonstrate how the magical world of witchcraft and the supernatural connects Spain to Latin America and Latin America to North America. This rich tradition of supernatural tales illuminates an unexplored aspect of the American Southwests Hispanic heritage. Included are biographical information about the narrators and a glossary highlighting the regional Spanish dialect of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Nasario Garca, a native New Mexican and leading folklorist in his state, has produced many works on New Mexican literature and folklore, including ""Old Las Vegas: Hispanic Memories from the New Mexico Meadowlands"" (TTUP 2004).

This title is the winners of 2005 Southwest Book Award. 'The stories are charmingly frank, unexpectedly humorous, sometimes sad, all reminiscent of a simpler, though not always uncomplicated time... The book brims with anecdotes, folklore, and oral history that help define one of New Mexicos most fascinating pockets of enchantment' - ""Albuquerque Journal"". 'Garcia presents stories on life in the countryside, education, folk healing, witchcraft, superstitions, religion, politics, folk sayings, and riddles... All Hispanic Americans with an interest in their cultural heritage should identify with many of the stories told by the viejitosthe old folks... Recommended' - ""Choice"". 'A veritable buffet of reminiscences... An outstanding contribution to the folklore and history of Hispanic New Mexico' - ""New Mexico Historical Review"". 'There is a rich and engaging text in two languages, humor and intelligence mixed in just the right proportion; what else could be desired? Photos! Ancianos, penitentes, cowboys: Welcome faces smile out of almost every page at the beginning of the book... In this book many, many stories will live to be enjoyed and appreciated by generations of new readers' - ""Southwest BookViews"". Nasario Garca, a native New Mexican and leading folklorist in his state, has produced many works on New Mexican literature and folklore, including ""Plticas: Conversations with Hispano Writers of New Mexico"" (Texas Tech 2000).

"When I moved to northern New Mexico thirty-three years ago," writes John Nichols, "I immediately fell in with my neighbours and commenced laughing". As folklorist Nasario Garcia explains in his introduction to this collection, falling in with the voices of laughter and comic relief is a timeless, vital aspect of Hispanic culture. ! Chistes! brings together for the first time in English and regional Spanish a medley of orally gathered humorous anecdotes from northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The chistes range in form from practical jokes, pranks, slips-of-the-tongue, hyperbole, solecisms, slapstick, and double entendres. True for most of the villages and towns represented in this collection, Hispanic humour is a function of folks who understand how to deal with difficult times with verve and at time self-deprecation, places with a strong communal identification, where everyone knows everybody's business and tells it with good-natured fun; where nothing is off limits, not even the church; where local politics takes it on the chin and farm animals provide the punch. The original Spanish versions of these tales are particularly flavourful for their colourful vernacular found uniquely in the region covered.

"When I moved to northern New Mexico thirty-three years ago," writes John Nichols, "I immediately fell in with my neighbours and commenced laughing." As folklorist Nasario Garcia explains in his introduction to this collection, falling in with the voices of laughter and comic relief is a timeless, vital aspect of Hispanic culture. ! Chistes! brings together for the first time in English and regional Spanish a medley of orally gathered humorous anecdotes from northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The chistes range in form from practical jokes, pranks, slips-of-the-tongue, hyperbole, solecisms, slapstick, and double entendres. True for most of the villages and towns represented in this collection, Hispanic humour is a function of folks who understand how to deal with difficult times with verve and at time self-deprecation, places with a strong communal identification, where everyone knows everybody's business and tells it with good-natured fun; where nothing is off limits, not even the church; where local politics takes it on the chin and farm animals provide the punch. The original Spanish versions of these tales are particularly flavourful for their colourful vernacular found uniquely in the region covered.

New Mexico is an enchanted land and from this beautiful place with its rich cultural diversity and complex history, a strong Hispanic literary tradition has grown spanning several centuries. ""Plticas: Conversations with Hispano Writers of New Mexico"" is a series of interviews with six remarkable contemporary Hispano writers from that New Mexico tradition. The conversations found here represent a sketch of New Mexican Hispanic intellectual and artistic history that has not been assembled elsewhere. Nasario Garcas interviews elicit candid commentary and spontaneous responses that reveal much about life experiences, the creative process, and the unique role that culture, tradition, and geography play in the literature that these writers have produced. From the reading of Plticas, students of Hispanic literature already familiar with these authors will discover fresh insights and new information, and new readers will be enticed to discover and explore this wealth of creative literary talent unique to New Mexico.