The story of Jewel Babb, from her early years as a tenderfoot ranch wife to her elder years as a desert healing woman, has enthralled readers since Border Healing Woman was first published in 1981. In this second edition, Pat LittleDog adds an epilogue to conclude the story, describing the mixed blessings that publicity brought to Jewel Babb before her death in 1991.
Jewel Babb is an independent Anglo woman who has lived most of her eighty years in the isolated desert region near El Paso. Border Healing Woman is her story -- of her young years spent traveling the area in a covered wagon, of her marriage into a wealthy ranch family and of the family's loss of that wealth, and of her life alone after her husband died and her sons were arrested for cattle smuggling. It is the story of her management of the little land she had left -- Indian Hot Springs on the Rio Grande.
Mexican American folk and religious healing, often referred to as curanderismo, has been a vital part of life in the Mexico-U.S. border region for centuries. A hybrid tradition made up primarily of indigenous and Iberian Catholic pharmacopeias, rituals, and notions of the self, curanderismo treats the sick person with a variety of healing modalities including herbal remedies, intercessory prayer, body massage, and energy manipulation. Curanderos, “healers,” embrace a holistic understanding of the patient, including body, soul, and community. Border Medicine examines the ongoing evolution of Mexican American religious healing from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. Illuminating the ways in which curanderismo has had an impact not only on the health and culture of the borderlands but also far beyond, the book tracks its expansion from Mexican American communities to Anglo and multiethnic contexts. While many healers treat Mexican and Mexican American clientele, a significant number of curanderos have worked with patients from other ethnic groups as well, especially those involved in North American metaphysical religions like spiritualism, mesmerism, New Thought, New Age, and energy-based alternative medicines. Hendrickson explores this point of contact as an experience of transcultural exchange. Drawing on historical archives, colonial-era medical texts and accounts, early ethnographies of the region, newspaper articles, memoirs, and contemporary healing guidebooks as well as interviews with contemporary healers, Border Medicine demonstrates the notable and ongoing influence of Mexican Americans on cultural and religious practices in the United States, especially in the American West.
The Border Healer My Life as a Curandero is one of the most significant contributions of its kind. Alberto Salinas, Jr. a curandero tells his story in the native voice. He tells us about his life and how he became a healer. He explains the spiritual world of El Nino Fidencio, the spiritual realm in which he practices and he shares with us many of his experiences as a working exorcist. He recounts his life growing up as a migrant farm worker in south Texas, marrying, raising children and working as a deputy sheriff before he recognized his calling to spiritual service as a curandero.
What if the traditional narrative about immigrant women--that those who come to the United States will succeed as long as they work hard, stay focused, and have supportive families--is a lie? Of the 73 million women in the US workforce, 11.5 million are foreign-born. The truth is--even in the midst of headlines and political debates about immigration reform and in the wake of MeToo and other female-centric movements--millions of immigrants, especially women, aren’t living their fullest potential. Based on her personal experience and the stories of trailblazing women from around the world and in diverse industries, author Chinwe Esimai shares five indispensable traits that make an ocean of difference between immigrants who live as mere shadows of their truest potential and those who find purpose and fulfillment--what Chinwe refers to as their immigrace: Saying yes to your immigrace, an immigrant woman’s expression of her highest purpose and potential Daring to play in the big leagues Transforming failure Embracing change and blending differences Finding joy and healing These five traits are the foundation of the Brilliance Blueprint, a step-by-step guide to help readers achieve to their own extraordinary results and build their own remarkable legacies.
Mexican American folk and religious healing, often referred to as curanderismo, has been a vital part of life in the Mexico-U.S. border region for centuries. A hybrid tradition made up primarily of indigenous and Iberian Catholic pharmacopeias, rituals, and notions of the self, curanderismo treats the sick person with a variety of healing modalities including herbal remedies, intercessory prayer, body massage, and energy manipulation. Curanderos, “healers,” embrace a holistic understanding of the patient, including body, soul, and community. Border Medicine examines the ongoing evolution of Mexican American religious healing from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. Illuminating the ways in which curanderismo has had an impact not only on the health and culture of the borderlands but also far beyond, the book tracks its expansion from Mexican American communities to Anglo and multiethnic contexts. While many healers treat Mexican and Mexican American clientele, a significant number of curanderos have worked with patients from other ethnic groups as well, especially those involved in North American metaphysical religions like spiritualism, mesmerism, New Thought, New Age, and energy-based alternative medicines. Hendrickson explores this point of contact as an experience of transcultural exchange. Drawing on historical archives, colonial-era medical texts and accounts, early ethnographies of the region, newspaper articles, memoirs, and contemporary healing guidebooks as well as interviews with contemporary healers, Border Medicine demonstrates the notable and ongoing influence of Mexican Americans on cultural and religious practices in the United States, especially in the American West.
Healing with Herbs and Rituals is an herbal remedy-based understanding of curanderismo and the practice of yerberas, or herbalists, as found in the American Southwest and northern Mexico. Part One, "Folk Healers and Folk Healing," focuses on individual healers and their procedures. Part Two, "Green Medicine: Traditional Mexican-American Herbs and Remedies," details traditional Mexican-American herbs and cures. These remedies are the product of centuries of experience in Mexico, heavily influenced by the Moors, Judeo-Christians, and Aztecs, and include everyday items such as lemon, egg, fire, aromatic oil, and prepared water. Symbolic objects such as keys, candles, brooms, and Trouble Dolls are also used. Dedicated, in part, to curanderos throughout Mexico and the American Southwest, Healing with Herbs and Rituals shows us these practitioners are humble, sincere people who have given themselves to improving lives for many decades. Today's holistic health movement has rediscovered the timeless merits of the curanderos' uses of medicinal plants, rituals, and practical advice.
In an innovative critique of traditional approaches to autobiography, Anne E. Goldman convincingly demonstrates that ethnic women can and do speak for themselves, even in the most unlikely contexts. Citing a wide variety of nontraditional texts—including the cookbooks of Nuevo Mexicanas, African American memoirs of midwifery and healing, and Jewish women's histories of the garment industry—Goldman illustrates how American women have asserted their ethnic identities and made their voices heard over and sometimes against the interests of publishers, editors, and readers. While the dominant culture has interpreted works of ethnic literature as representative of a people rather than an individual, the working women of this study insist upon their own agency in narrating rich and complicated self-portraits.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021 A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK WINNER of the Isabel Allende Most Inspirational Fiction Award, She Reads Best of 2021 Awards • FINALIST for the 2022 Southern Book Prize • LONGLISTED for Crook’s Corner Book Prize • NOMINEE for 2021 GoodReads Choice Award in Debut Novel and Historical Fiction A sweeping, masterful debut about a daughter's fateful choice, a mother motivated by her own past, and a family legacy that begins in Cuba before either of them were born In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette. Steadfast in her quest for understanding, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with secrets from the past destined to erupt. From 19th-century cigar factories to present-day detention centers, from Cuba to Mexico, Gabriela Garcia's Of Women and Salt is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayals—personal and political, self-inflicted and those done by others—that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories despite those who wish to silence them, this is more than a diaspora story; it is a story of America’s most tangled, honest, human roots.
