My father is in the habit of giving me books every time I visit, and this book by Nicolas Kanellos was one of them. It has proven handy when I need a quick fact to make a point or for confirmation. The book's excerpted entries are each listed with the reference source immediately following (author, title, page).

The book lists Hispanic firsts in the U.S. in 14 subject areas (Arts & Design, Business & Commerce, Education, and so on in alphabetical order). Especially important entries are in shadow boxes. BW photos and illus. draw your attention to other entries. A 4'7"-long events timeline folds out from inside the front cover. It can be carefully removed, laminated, and tacked onto a wall. A calendar of firsts flags birthdays of notables and anniversaries of significant events. In addition to the usual subject index, you'll find an index of firsts by year (1493-1997).

The theater section was of special interest to me. Several years ago I met Kanellos at a grassroots theater conference at Cornell. While there, I and a few others were drafted by him to present vaudeville sketches from early Hispanic theater. You can find an entry in HISPANIC FIRSTS (pp. 321-22) that points out the first history of Hispanic theater in the U.S. was written by Kanellos himself. He's done a lot of other awe-inspiring things, but you can consult the book for those.

While Kanellos excerpted material from many sources, five books stood out:

1) Kanellos's CHRONOLOGY OF HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORY: FROM PRE-COLUMBIAN TIMES TO THE PRESENT;

2) Kanellos's THE HISPANIC AMERICAN ALMANAC;

3) Joseph Tardiff & L. Mpho Mabunda's DICTIONARY OF HISPANIC BIOGRAPHY;

4) Diane Telgen & Jim Kamp's LATINAS! WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT; and

5) Matt Meier & Feliciano Rivera's DICTIONARY OF MEXICAN AMERICAN HISTORY.

Did you know that Spanish Florida offered sanctuary to runaway slaves as early as 1693? That the first farmworkers union was created by Mexican and Japanese laborers in 1903? That a successful 1945 lawsuit against the segregation of Mexican children in Orange County, Calif., paved the way for the landmark "Brown v. Board of Education"? Just a few facts from this book.

This reference, suitable for most school, academic, and public libraries, provides one stop shopping for all things Hispanic in America. Edited by a prominent Hispanic scholar and educator, Dr. Nicolas Kanellos, this 3-volume set covers all aspects of American Hispanic heritage. It is not just historical in nature. It also provides ready reference for things like organizations, biographies of leading Hispanics, with references and a bibliography (should one want do do more in depth study and research).

This is moderately priced considering the amount and quality of information covered.

Herencia : The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United States by Nicolas Kanellos (Editor), is a book that's been creating a lot of buzz here in San Antonio (where I live), a town that is one of the centers of "Hispanic" literature. The buzz has been overwhelmingly negative, the primary thrust of the discussions being that this book is a "political" book and a "sellout".

The book does have some serious problems. First of all, this is not an anthology of "Hispanic" authors per se--calling it an anthology of "Latino" authors would have been more accurate. You'd think the guru's at an institution as prestigious and knowledgeable as the Oxford University Press would understand that entities other than the Spanish colonized the southern Americas. If this was intended to be a collection of "Hispanic" literature, several included authors should have been excluded.

As it is, excluding authors didn't seem to be an issue. A list of major "Hispanic" authors whose work does not appear-or even get passing mention-here would fill a much larger collection than this. Such a list would include major literary award recipients such as Kathleen Acala, Ana Castillo and Sandra Cisneros, as well as other, extremely well known and thought of artists as Julia Alvarez, Jose Antonio Burciaga, Alam Luz Villanueva, Denise Chavez, Gary Soto, Angela de Hoyos, John Phillip Santos, Juan Philipe Herrera, Arturo Islas and Cecile Pineda, to literally just name a few.

The word around here is that this is a "political" book in the politics os publishing sense. Mr. Kanellos is apparently know quite well in the Latino writing community as a man who helps those he like and attacks those he does not-apparently quite a list based on the omissions from this text. That sounds like pettiness at first blush-but when one looks at the way this book is constructed, one has to wonder.

Even with all that, the book is an impressive collection of works.that cover a wide range of Latio heritage (the translation of the title) and writing styles.

In the end, this stands not as "the" anthology of the (rather arrogant) title, but "an" anthology of "Latino" writers that is seriously flawed, but nevertheless stands as an impressive collection all the same.

A vast compilation of the struggles, strivings, and dreams of a people. The selections show a sharp eye for scholarship and passion is at work, one with a keen ear for the music of the language. Kudos to Dworkin y Mendez and the other editors for their labor of love and language.

A good book for intermediate to advanced students of Spanish. It is believed to be the first example of Chicano literature. This book can be revealing as a lesson in the struggle new immigrants face in the US. This was written long ago but in many ways, little had changed.

It seems to be a very interesting book every hispanic theater lover should possess.