Ramona [Paperback]

One of the greatest ethical novels of the nineteenth century, this is a tale of true love tested. Set in Old California, this powerful narrative richly depicts the life of the fading Spanish order, the oppression of tribal American communities and inevitably, the brutal intrusion of white settlers. Ramona, an illegitimate orphan, grows up as the ward of the overbearing Senora Moreno. But her desire for Alessandro, a Native American, makes her an outcast and fugitive...“Ramonais a secondUncle Tom’s Cabin. . . .The arrogant mestiza whose attachment to her Indian lover endures through persecution and death. . .and the desperate love they share until the vanquishing blond race casts them out like hunted animals . . . all this is alive in these pages.”
–José Martí
Denise Chávez, a prolific playwright, poet, and novelist, is the author ofLoving Pedro Infante,Face of an Angel, andThe Last of the Menu Girls. She lives in New Mexico.I. It was sheep-shearing time in Southern California; but sheep-shearing was late at the Señora Moreno’s. The Fates had seemed to combine to put it off. In the first place, Felipe Moreno had been ill. He was the Señora’s eldest son, and since his father’s death had been at the head of his mother’s house. Without him, nothing could be done on the ranch, the Señora thought. It had been always, “Ask Señor Felipe,” “Go to Señor Felipe,” “Señor Felipe will attend to it,” ever since Felipe had had the dawning of a beard on his handsome face.

In truth, it was not Felipe, but the Señora, who really decided all questions from greatest to least, and managed everything on the place, from the sheep-pastures to the artichoke-patch; but nobody except the Señora herself knew this. An exceedingly clever woman for her day and generation was Señoral“2