Includes bibliographical references (pages 109-120) and index.

"Delia Poey compares the risks facing teachers and interpreters of well-known Latina/o and Latin American texts with those run by the "coyote" who smuggles undocumented workers across the U.S./Mexico border: both are in danger of erasing those cultural traits that made the border crossers important." "Poey shows that these texts have yet to be fully mainstreamed into the curricula, and that teachers of multicultural literature inadvertently re-colonize the texts by failing to treat them "on their own terms." She goes beyond highlighting the ways a superficial understanding of Latin American literature has led to an even more superficial or problematic reception of Latina/o texts and offers solutions. Poey not only provides teachers and critics of Latina/o literature with innovative and viable approaches to these texts but proposes new contexts for them and new ways of viewing how they have been treated in classrooms and criticism."--Jacket.

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