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Early literary works written in Spanish in what is today the American Southwest have been largely excluded from the corpus of American literature, yet these documents are the literary antecedents of contemporary Chicano and Chicana writing. This new collection of essays establishes the importance of this literary heritage through a critical examination of key texts produced in the Southwest from 1542 to 1848. Drawing on research in the archives of Southwestern libraries and applying contemporary literary theoretical constructs to these centuries-old manuscripts, the authors - all noted scholars in Chicano literature - demonstrate that these works should be recognized as an integral part of American literature. Ground-breaking, innovative, and intellectually stimulating, these essays conceptualize Chicano literature in a new perspective and make a major contribution to both Chicano historiography and American Studies.