An
unusual encyclopedia published
this year fills gaps in two fields: women’s studies
and Latino history. Latinas in
the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia (Indiana U. Press) is the result
of a seven-year collaboration between Vicki L. Ruiz,
MA ’78, PhD ’82,
and Virginia Sánchez-Korrol. With nearly 600
entries by some 200 writers, the three-volume set records
the contributions to U.S. cultural and economic life
of women in the country’s largest minority group,
covering areas from science to arts, religion to politics.
Three hundred photographs illustrate the text. The
encyclopedia has another distinctive feature: roughly
a third of its biographical entries chronicle ordinary
women who made a difference to their communities but
remained unknown to the wider public. Ruiz teaches
history and Chicano/Latino studies at UC-Irvine; Sánchez-Korrol
is a history professor at Brooklyn College.