Latino American Folktales: Stories from The American Mosaic

Latino American Folktales: Stories from The American Mosaic


Ed Thomas A. Green

GreenWood Press, Westport, CT 2009

IBSN: 978-0-313-36299-6

“Latino American Folktales” is designed to provide educators, students, and general readers with examples of a range of traditional Latino narrative types: fictional tales, legends, myths, and personal experience narratives. Moreover, the examples in this anthology represent the cultural diversity within the American Latino, Native North, Central, and South American influences are apparent in the Latino repertoire by virtue of the inclusion of Characters such as Coyote and Tigre (Jaguar) in fictional tales, and by the incorporation of Native American historical figures such as Montezuma and Papantzin into the legend corpus.



Into the twenty-first century, the Latino folktale repertoire continues to be enriched by infusions from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. These tales reflect the environment, cultural adaptations, and prevailing concerns of the respective areas from which they are drawn. The introductions to each tale comment on these issues. The concluding general bibliography provides additional resources for those readers who wish to explore these issues in greater depth.



The collection is divided into four sections. “Origins” encompasses those narratives that focus on beginnings and transformations: the creation of the world and its inhabitants, how animal species acquired their physical characterics, and how the family came to be here, for example. “Heroes, Heroines, Villains, and Fools” presents a cross-section of major character types that populate Latino Folktales. “Society and Conflict” contains considerations of social issues ranging from conventional morality to intergroup conflicts. Finally, “The Supernatural” concentrates on traditional tales of the dead, the magical, and the monstrous.



A special collection of legends and stories which will assist teachers understand their student’s stories and librarians to fill the shelves with books of interest to their Latino patrons.

Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez

Return to Sender


Julia Alvarez

Alfred A. Knoph New York: 2009

ISBN: 978-0-375-95838-0



Tyler is having a bad year. His grandfather died, then his father was in an accident and almost killed. Tyler’s father will eventually recover, but not in time to save the farm. When Tyler comes back from a month-long visit to relatives, he discovers that his parents have hired three Mexicans to work the farm. His parents don’t tell him the whole truth, and Tyler has to discover that the Mexican workers are not citizens.



On top of this new information, Tyler meets the three daughters, known as the Three Maria’s. The oldest Mari goes to school with him and attends the same grade as Tyler. Tyler struggles with what is right and wrong especially when he feels a strong friendship developing between himself and Mari.



The reader learns about the life and struggles of the Mexican family through the letters that Mari writes to her mother who has disappeared and a letter she writes to the President. Her wishes are simple: for her mother to return to the family safely; for her father and uncles to be allowed to work because they send their money home to help her grandparents; and for her and her sisters to stay together.



Julia Alvarez wisely constructs this dilemma with no real heroes or villains. Through the interactions of the three daughters and mostly through Mari’s letters, and Tyler’s struggle to know what is right or wrong to do, the reader experiences the strengths of the positive hard working people aiding a farmer in need, and the laws that are crossed by both Mexican and American citizens to assist people on both sides of the border.



This story enlightens the reader to the real people involved in what is called the “migrant problem.”