Herencia: The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United States (Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage (Oxford University Press).)
Ten years in the making, this anthology is an unprecedented  collection of writing in North America from the age of the  Spanish explorers in the 16th century to the present. Kanellos  is most famous for founding Arte P#blico Press, the oldest  Hispanic publishing house in the United States. As he states in  his lengthy introduction, while most people think American  letters began with the English Colonies, Spanish had been spoken  and written in North America since the early 1500s. From the  writings of explorers like Alvar N#$ez Cabeza de Vaca, who  wandered from Florida to the Southwest for eight years, to the  early political defense of Hispanic culture in 19th-century  Texas, to the classic verse of the Nuyorican poets of urban  postwar America, Herencia comprehensively collects an  underacknowledged literature. The anthology is divided into  sometimes questionable sections, as when the categorization is  based on a writer's birthplace rather than the content of his or  her work. This is especially evident in the placement of Junot  D!az, whose work epitomizes U.S. Latino writing, in the  "immigrant" section. Still, the difficulty of categorizing the  Latino experience excuses this problem, and since so many  essential works from Pedro Pietri, Cherrie Moraga, Reinaldo  Arenas, Julia de Burgos, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonz lez, and Jos   Mart! are included, Herencia is absolutely indispensable.  Recommended for all academic and public libraries. Adriana  Lopez, "Cr!ticas"Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.