Authors

The Squatter and the Don, first published in San Francisco in 1885, was reprinted in 1997 as part of the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage project by Arte Público Press, edited by Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita. It has also been reprinted by Modern Library (2004). Ruiz de Burton’s other major work, Who Would Have Thought It? was also reprinted by Arte Público (1995), edited by Sánchez and Pita; it is a satire on U.S. politics and society set in Washington, DC, during and after the Civil War. Conflicts of Interest: The Letters of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, edited by Sánchez and Pita, appeared in 2001. Amelia María de la Luz Montes and Anne Elizabeth Goldman edited María Amparo Ruiz de Burton: Critical and Pedagogical Perspectives (2004), which contains several fine essays on The Squatter and the Don by critics including José F. Aranda, Jr., Vincent Pérez, Jennifer S. Tuttle, and John M. González. The essays acknowledge the political complexity of Ruiz de Burton and draw connections between her and later Mexican-American women writers; the volume also includes a section on pedagogy that offers a discussion of teaching approaches, syllabi, discussion questions, and assignments. Regions of Identity: The Construction of America in Women’s Fiction, 1885–1914, (1999) by Kate McCullough is valuable on Ruiz de Burton and Pauline Hopkins. Because Ruiz de Burton is only a recently “recovered” writer, most work on her is appearing in essay form in scholarly journals. “Contradictory Impulses: María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Resistance Theory, and the Politics of Chicano/a Studies” by José F. Aranda, is included in No More Separate Spheres! A Next Wave American Studies Reader, ed. Cathy N. Davidson and Jessamyn Hatcher (2002); Aranda challenges critics to re-examine the assumptions of resistance theories, particularly if they unconsciously assume the preeminence of the United States or western cultural supremacy. “María Amparo Ruiz de Burton Negotiates American Literary Politics and Culture,” by Amelia Maria de la Luz Montes, is in Challenging Boundaries: Gender and Periodization (2000), ed. Joyce W. Warren and Margaret Dickie. De la Luz Montes introduces an early Mexican American literary tradition and relates that tradition to already established Western writers. “Historical Amnesia and the Vanishing Mestiza: The Problem of Race in The Squatter and the Don and Ramona,” by Jesse Alemán, appears in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies (2002). Finally, “ ‘Those Indians Are Great Thieves, I Suppose?’: Historicizing the White Woman in The Squatter and the Don,” by Peter A. Chvany, is included in Samina Najmi, Rajini Srikanth’s White Women in Racialized Spaces: Imaginative Transformation and Ethical Action in Literature (2002).