In recent years the many works by Chicano writers of the American Southwest have been a source of interest for students of regional literature in the United States. One common denominator in the works of early Hispanic writers of New Mexico and Texas is the extent to which they brought to their fiction a sense of their immediate environment. Contemporary Chicano writers also situate their fiction and poetry within images of desert landscapes: Gary Soto writes of California's central valley, Denise Chávez evokes New Mexico's dry heat, and the Texas desert gives Pat Mora's poetry its distinctive setting. Likewise, images of old Arizona permeate the works of Patricia Preciado Martin.

Preciado Martin is the author of four books, including children's stories, fiction, photo-essays, and oral histories. Her finely wrought and descriptive works evoke the mexicano barrios of "old" Tucson and the desert that was her playground...