Villages & Villagers: Stories
from New Mexico Villages
Abe Peña will transport you again to a Hispanic New Mexico
village in the Land of Cíbola. Here are 71 more stories that
pick up where the best-seller Memories
of Cíbola left off. Peña’s stories of the people
and places in Cíbola speak to such universal themes as coming of
age, striking out on one’s own, and joining family and neighbors to
celebrate good times and to aid them in overcoming hardships. He shares
with us a remarkable cross-section of humanity.
Marc Simmons, the noted historian and author, says,“Abe Peña
mines his own extensive body of personal experiences and the
experiences of native folk he has known during his early days on sheep
ranches in western New Mexico. His memory of times gone by is sharp,
and he shines as a keen observer of the human condition. The people and
events he sketches have a timeless quality about them, leading the
reader to slip easily into another world and a different age. As a book
that will both entertain and inform, this adds to our understanding of
the New Mexico that is now but a fading memory.” Abe Peña ran
the family ranch for many years before serving twelve years in Latin
America in various foreign service positions.
Read a sample story ADAN
BARELA –THE
SHARPSHOOTER
Buy Here
Hardcover $32.95
SoftCover $18.95
Memories of Cibola: Stories
from New Mexico Villages
Let Abe Peña transport you to a Hispanic New Mexico village.
There, in San Mateo, and in the nearby town of Grants, he introduces us
to relatives and friends from his youth on his family’s sheep ranch.
His stories of their lives and experiences between the 1920s and the
1950s speak to such universal themes as coming of age, striking out on
one’s own, and joining family and neighbors to celebrate good times and
to aid them in overcoming hardships.
Though San Mateo was a remote village, its residents were a remarkable
cross-section of humanity. We meet Lebanese immigrant children who grew
up primarily speaking Spanish and who proudly exclaimed “Yo soy
mexicano, casi” (I’m Hispanic, almost). When a religious procession
done in hopes of bringing rain results instead in hail, the villagers
organize a second procession and parade their patron saint to show him
“the mess he made.” And an aged Navajo, in allowing cattle to be driven
across his land, asks only that they go by his hogan’s door so he can
hear and smell them.
Abe Peña ran the family ranch for many years before serving
twelve years in Latin America in various foreign service positions.
Buy Here
Hardcover $32.95
SoftCover $17.95
