Landmark Chicana Work Inscribed
Old Spain in Our Southwest
Publication: New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936. First edition.
Notes: An early Chicana work, collecting and retelling folklore gathered by the Federal Writers Project during the 1930s. Old Spain in Our Southwest is one of the earliest works by a Mexican American writer to be issued by a New York pubisher. This copy is inscribed to the author's half-brother.
"These stories reveal a sense of urgency that stems from the perception that the traditions and values of her Hispanic heritage were disappearing. Otero-Warren felt the isolation and alienation of this disappearance as she mourned an idealized Spanish past while trying to survive the transition to an Anglicized world... [Otero] was active in politics and in 1917 chaired New Mexico's suffragettes' chapter. She served a–s Santa Fe County school superintendent, held a position in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, and was a candidate for the U.S. Senate, but was not elected."—Herencia, edited by Alejandra Balestra, p. 188–189.
María Adelina Isabel Emilia "Nina" Otero-Warren (October 23, 1881 – January 3, 1965) was briefly married to the cavalry officer Rawson D. Warren from 1908 to 1910. He portrait appeared on the U.S. quarter coin in 2022.
This book has a troubled history with Chicano scholars because of class issues. Otero was a well-off New Mexican from a prominent family (her cousin Miguel Antonio Otero was territorial governor) and a writer seemingly comfortable with Anglo culture. Margaret García Davidson notes, writing about both Oteros, "These two writers stand at the margins of Mexican-American literary history, their works ignored, dismissed, or distorted." Yet she argues that by dismissing them, "Chicano literary critics have failed to recover the works on their own terms and have, in effect, dictated Chicano theory."
In addition to her general argument that Old Spain needs to be read on its own terms, Davidson points out that Nina Otero's account of the Penitentes offers one of the earliest Mexican American views on the distinctively Mexican American religious group.
[2:blank], x, 192, [4:blank] pages.
Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing, with no later printings noted). Magazine profile story about the author mounted to the rear endpaper, thus very good in a good dust jacket with old tape reinforcing on the back (verso). Corners showing wear; jacket creased from when it was folded and inserted into the book. This copy is inscribed to the author's half-brother Antonio Luna Bergere and his wife, Carolyn (née Updyke), "To Luna and Carolyn with affectionate thought—from your sister, Nina Otero. 2/25/36." Very uncommon signed.
Item No: #365942
Price: $750