The relative dearth of information on nineteenth-century Latino/Chicano literary history is slowly being remedied by the discovery of long-neglected texts such as those written by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton. These texts will undoubtedly have a central place in the growing canon of Latino/Chicano literature. Ruiz de Burton was a writer with a powerful voice who addressed crucial issues of ethnicity, power, gender, class, and race. As an acculturated Californio writing for publication in English, Ruiz de Burton utilizes contemporary nineteenth-century discourses--political, juridical, economic, commercial, and literary--to voice the bitter resentment of the Californios faced with Anglo American domination in the aftermath of annexation to the United States. Seen in this light, Ruiz de Burton is clearly a precursor of Chicano literature whose novels investigate issues at the core of Chicano history and literature. As a woman writer her work is of special significance...