Includes bibliographical references and index.

Literary strategies in Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's The account / Harold Augenbraum -- Trials and tribulations : the life and works of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton / Beatrice Pita -- Piri Thomas' Down these mean streets : writing as a Nuyorican/Puerto Rican strategy for survival / Asela Rodríguez de Laguna -- Un mundo entero : Tomás Rivera and his world / Evangelina Vigil-Piñón -- Historical and magical, ancient and contemporary : the world of Rudolfo A. Anaya's Bless me, Ultima / Margarite Fernández Olmos -- The self as cultural metaphor : Oscar "Zeta" Acosta's The autobiography of a brown buffalo / Genaro M. Padilla -- Adapting, not assimilating : Edward Rivera's Family installments / Alfredo Villanueva-Collado -- Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of memory and the rejection of the private self / Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert -- Teaching Oscar Hijuelos' Our house in the last world / Gustavo Pérez Firmat -- Female voices in Sandra Cisneros' The house on Mango Street / Myrna-Yamil González -- The Dominican-American bildungsroman : Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia girls lost their accents / Heather Rosario-Sievert -- In context : Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La frontera : the new Mestiza / Hector A. Torres -- Writing a life : When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago / Aileen Schmidt -- Judith Ortiz Cofer's The Latin deli / Rafael Ocasio -- Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban : the contested domains of politics, family, and history / Iraida H. López -- Junot Díaz's Drown : revisiting "those mean streets" / Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert -- Using Latina poetry in the classroom / Bryce Milligan -- Borders and birthrights : watching Cheech Marin's Born in East L.A. / Chon A. Noriega.