The Milagro Beanfield War: A Novel [Paperback]

Joe Mondragon, a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, slammed his battered pickup to a stop, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into the arid patch of ground. Carefully (and also illegally), he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And so began-though few knew it at the time-the Milagro beanfield war. But like everything else in the dirt-poor town of Milagro, it would be a patchwork war, fought more by tactical retreats than by battlefield victories. Gradually, the small farmers and sheepmen begin to rally to Joe's beanfield as the symbol of their lost rights and their lost lands. And downstate in the capital, the Anglo water barons and power brokers huddle in urgent conference, intent on destroying that symbol before it destroys their multimillion-dollar land-development schemes. The tale of Milagro's rising is wildly comic and lovingly tender, a vivid portrayal of a town that, half-stumbling and partly prodded, gropes its way toward its own stubborn salvation.

Discussion Questions

1. How can the story of Joe Mondrag?n's bean field be applied to current clashes between independent landowners and developers? How does the tiny town of Milagro reflect current disputes in borderlands around the world?

2. What role do outsiders play in the Milagro war? How are Bloom and Goldfarb received? Did their lives on the East Coast prepare them for what they would encounter in the Southwest?

3. How does Bernab? Montoya manage his role as sheriff? Where do his loyalties lie? What sort of enforcer is he? Is he right to be so afraid of symbolic acts?

4. Did your opinion of Joe Mondrag?n shift throughout the novel? Is he an accidental hero, or does he possess a calculated bravery that other revolutionaries would do well to emulate?

5. Discuss the notion of milagro, the Spanish word for miracle , as it applies to the novel. How does Amarante C?rdova, whose longevity astonishes those who know him, perceive the line between miracle and ló