Mexican American writing is a very valuable resource for environmental thought. Mexican Americans' deep historical ties to the land – working the land in sustainable ways – and the narration of these ties in memoirs and novels of the nineteenth and early twentieth century prove invaluable resources for traditional environmental knowledge. Up to now, no one has taken the time to establish a methodical mapping of Mexican American environmental writing. Writing such a Mexican American environmental literary history involves two challenges: to establish as deep a historical context as possible, and to offer a comprehensive geographic representation. This lecture is part of this larger project and concerns the environmental writer Adelina Otero Warren from New Mexico, a region that contains a rich history of writing about the natural environment, and delves into the early twentieth century, a period of dynamic development in the Mexican American identity.
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2008